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rHE SOCIAL SCIENCE PAMPHLETS 



ESSENTIALS IN 

GEOGRAPHY - HISTORY - CIVICS 



BY 

HAROLD RUGG 

EARLE RUGG 

EMMA SCHWEPPE 

OF 

THE LINCOLN SCHOOL OF TEACHERS COLLEGE 



The Westward Movement 

AND THE 

Growth of Transportation 



The Red Man's Continent 
Why the Colonists Came 
Life on the Different Frontiers 
Across the Appalachian Barrier 
The California Gold Rush 
Natives and Immigrants as Pioneers 
From Pack Horse to Pullman Car 
From Flat Boat to Steamship 



AN EXPERIMENTAL EDITION 
Of Pamphlet No. 1 of Volume 11: The Eighth Grade Series 



This edition is published by the authors for cooperative 
experimentation in schools with which arrangements are 
made. It is not for general commercial distribution. 



TMPS6-CC624t 

•J 



Copyright, 1922, by Harold Rugq, Earle Rugg, and 
Emma Schweppe. The reproduction of these materials 
is expressly prohihited. 

THIS is one of The Social Science Pamphlets for the 
school grades Seven, Eight, and Nine. Although these 
Pamphlets are not a perfected curriculum, it is necessary 
that they be printed at this time in order to determine 
experimentally their reorganization. The content that 
they represent has been taught in mimeographed form 
in three grades of The Lincoln School of Teachers Col- 
lege, 1920-1922. For two years and a half the authors 
have also carried on curriculum investigations seeking to 
validate the content of this social science course. The 
present status of these studies justifies the printing of a 
trial edition. The purpose of the trial edition is to deter- 
mine by measured experimentation the grade placement 
and teaching arrangement of the material. As a result 
of their cooperative use in public schools, 1922-1923, The 
Social Science Pamphlets will be completely revised and 
issued in another experimental edition for use in cooper- 
ating schools, 1923-1924. 

A series of monographs will be published to accom- 
pany this curriculum Avhich will report the research by 
which the materials have been selected and organized. 



The Westward Movement and the Growth op 
Transportation is Pamphlet No. 1 of Vol. II, the 
Eighth Gi-ade Series, in a complete Seventh, Eighth, 
and Ninth Grade curriculum in geography, history, 
and civics. Five or six pamphlets will be issued 
for each grade. They will deal with the following 
aspects of American life, presenting essential contem- 
porary matters together with needed historical back- 
ground and geographic conditions and explanations: 

I. Immigration and Americanization. 
II. Conserving Onr Natural Resources. 

III. Industry, Business, and Transportation, 

IV. Seliools, the Press, Public Opinion. 

V. The American City and Its Problems. 
VT. The Culture of America and of Other Lands. 
VII. Problems of Government in a Representative Pemoeracy, 
VIII. Priiuitive Peoi)les. Past and Present. 
IX. America and World Affaii-s. 

The authors need cooperation and criticism from pub- 
lic schools. They will welcome inquiries and suggestions 
about this experimental work. 

x\ddress all inquiries to : Harold Rugg, The Lincoln 
School, 425 West 123rd Street, New York, N. Y. 



THE SOCIAL SCIENCE PAMPHLETS 



ESSENTIALS IN 

GEOGRA PHY — HISTORY — CIVICS 



BY 

HAROLD RUGG 

x 

EARLE RUGG 

EMMA SCHWEPPE 

OF 

THE LINCOLN SCHOOL OF TEACHERS COLLEGE 



The Westward Movement 

AND THE 

Growth of Transportation 



The Red Man's Continent 
Why the Colonists Came 
Life on the Different Frontiers 
Across the Appalachian Barrier 
The California Gold Rush 
Natives and Immigrants as Pioneers 
From Pack Horse to Pullman Car 
From Flat Boat to Steamship 



AN EXPERIMENTAL EDITION 
Of Pamphlet No. 1 of Volume II: The Eighth Grade Series 



This edition is published by the authors for cooperative 
experimentation in schools with which arrangements are 
made. It is not for general commercial distribution. 



r" 



THOSE who are engaged in the making of these materials 
of instruction believe that the future of representative 
democracy in America depends upon the intelligence of 
the common man. They believe that the known facts of intel- 
ligence are worthy of the hypothesis that there is in the group 
mind sufficient capacity to express its will effectively through 
industrial, social, and political machinery. This means that 
potential capacity must be transformed into dynamic ability. 
They are equally confident that, although America has practised 
universal education on a scale never before attempted by a 
large nation, our instruction has fallen far short of preparing 
the rank and file for the intelligent operation of democratic 
government. 

After more than a century of democracy, there are signs 
of serious import that we are facing a near impasse in citizen- 
ship. The impasse, if such it is, is undoubtedly the natural 
outgrowth of our spectacular conquest of vast material wealth ; 
of our reception into the country of thirty-three millions of 
people of diverse races, nationalities, practices, and beliefs, and 
of the massing of human being-s in cities at a rate of which we 
had hitherto not dreamed. The present crisis has been brought 
about in lai'ge part by the mushroom growth of a fragile and 
highly specialized mechanism of industry, transportation, com- 
munication, and credit. With these stupendous material ad- 
vances, resulting in the artificial inflation of our economic and 
social standards of living, there has not been a parallel aesthetic, 
spiritual, and cultural growth. 

To relieve this impasse, we must substitute critical judg- 
ment for impulsive response as the basis for deciding our social 
and political issues. The thoroughgoing reconstruction of the 
school curriculum is a necessary first step in the process, for the 
reason that the public school is our most potent agency for 
social regeneration. Especially through the curriculum in the 
social sciences must we subject our youth to a daily regimen of 
deliberation and critical thought. Only those who have been 
trained through years of practise in the analysis of facts, in 
the making of decisions, the drawing of inferences and conclu- 
sions, will resort to intelligence instead of to predisposition as 
their guide for conduct. 

(S)CI.A683a78 



tM 30 1^22 



I. FOREWORD TO THE PUPIL 

SOCIAL STUDIES FOR THE EIGHTH GRADE 
GEOGRAPHY— HISTORY— CIVICS 

What the Pamphlets Will Teach You. 

You are beginning a year's study of interesting things about your 
own country and its people. You are going to learn who Americans 
are, where they have all come from, how they live in different parts 
of the United States, what kinds of work they do, and many other 
things about the people whose life is different from yours and from 
others of your town or city. The pamphlets you will read tell many 
true stories of real life which will surprise and interest you. They 
• tell how people from all the other countries in the world have been 
coming to this country for many, many years, the important things 
that have happened to them, how they have become a part of our 
nation. Of course we are most interested in understanding what is 
going on today ; we want to know what troubles our country is hav- 
ing and what dangers we, as a people, are facing. But in order to 
understand these things, we need to know how our country grew to 
its present size. We need to know the important history of her 
great "polyglot" people, how they came here and why, how they 
settled the wilderness and the prairie, the mountainous uplands, and 
the broad fertile valleys between the two oceans — nearly three thou- 
sand miles from coast to coast. We want to see how they built great 
cities far apart from each other, and then tied them together with 
railroads, telephones and telegraph, Uncle Sam's postal service, and 
how countless newspapers carry the news of one city to another from 
day^ to day. We want to know a great deal about the important 
industries of the country, about our schools, about our government, 
so that we will know how to be good citizens and how to help America 
solve her problems. 

We need to know some of the things that geography teaches, too — 
Avhere certain cities and mountains and important rivers are, why 
cities grew at some places and not at others, why railroads are where 
they are, the reasons for locks in canal-building, why great ports have 
developed. 

You will study maps and charts and graphs, and learn to make 
them, and to talk about the influences that facts of geography have 



IV WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

had upon our industries, upon the way our people live, and upon our 
dealings with other nations. 

In order that each of you shall truly understand what is going on 
today, and how things of the past have led up to things of the present, 
we shall have a good deal of practice in thinking over the various 
problems. The "good citizen" is, after all, the person who knows the 
facts and has trained his mind so that he can think out his opinions 
from the facts. The good citizen does not let his prejudices decide 
things for him. 

So you have two important tasks before you in studying the Social 
Science Pamphlets: First, to master the big facts about how we live 
today in this world of ours, and how it came to be what it is; second, 
to make sure that you have sufficient facts on both sides of any ques- 
tion, then to weigh those facts carefully before forming your opinion 
as to which side is right. There are many big problems today about 
which we can only have opinions ; we can not be sure that one side is 
right and the other wrong, but the more we read and the more we 
think and study about them, the more apt we are to make right 
decisions. Our real task, then, is to try to master the facts and begin 
thinking about our problems. Read the questions at the close of this 
pamphlet and you will understand better what we mean. 

The lessons have been arranged with a view to giving you practice 
in thinking carefully and learning to make sound conclusions. In each 
lesson you should constantly be asking yourself such questions as these : 

1. What are the true facts about this matter? 

2. Have I all the facts I need ? 

3. Is there another side to the question that I havq, not considered ? 

4. Are the facts I have read or been told probably reliable ? Can 
I depend on them as being true? 

5. Is there reason to believe that the people who gave the facts 
are prejudiced? 

6. Which side of the question is supported by the most important 
facts ? 

In your work in the social studies you will also have frequent 
opportunity to practice writing and speaking off-hand about different 
questions. When you really know facts about a matter that the class 
is discussing, you should volunteer to answer; stand up and tell your 
ideas in as orderly a way as you can. We want to have a great deal 
of discussion and "class debate," for in these lessons there are many 
lessons that have several sides to them and should be debated. Each 
day also you are expected to take notes on the important points that 
have been brought up in the lesson. Later we will give you some sug- 
gestions for note-taking. 



FOREWORD TO THE PUPIL V 

We hope you will become interested and want to read books and 
magazines that tell more about the things we take up in these lessons. 
You will find additional reading suggested at the end of this pamphlet, 
and your teacher will help you select the best things to read. 

Work out the answers to all the questions asked in the exercises 
and in other parts of the lessons. Among the things that will interest 
you most in the pamphlets are the true stories that are given. You 
must be sure with each one that you know the important point, it, 
illustrates. Every map and graph and picture also means something, 
and you must be sure that you understand these, too. Study them 
carefully as you go along. 

Your Note-book. 

We suggest a loose-leaf note-book, large enough to take note-paper, 
size 8| by 11 inches. Use the note-book for writing down your assign- 
ments, for jotting down important points that are brought out in class 
discussions, and for summaries of lessons. 

A short summary is to be made of each lesson. It should be dated 
and handed in to the teacher for approval. It is important to keep 
these summaries in the right order, according to dates — September 10, 
September 11, September 12, etc. The summary should be brief and 
definite; it should contain the important facts of the lesson. Keep 
all notes on paper of one size. 

Assignments. 

Reserve a special place in your note-book for assignments, and keep 
them in the order in which they are given. If you miss a day, leave a 
place for the assignment, and put it in the next day. Write down 
the assignment exactly, with all directions as to what to do, things to 
look up, and questions. Date each one, giving the day of the month — 
September 10, September 11, September 12, etc. If you are absent, be 
sure to find out the assignment you miss, and make it up in a manner 
approved by your teacher. 

How TO Use These Pamphlets. 
Suggestions for Class Preparation. 

1. Read the lesson through rapidly, not stopping to think out 
the answers to the questions. This first view will enable you to see 
what the lesson is about. 

2. Read the lesson through again, this time carefully, working 
out all the exercises and answering all the questions. Study each 
figure, whether it be map, chart, graph, or picture, and answer all the 
test questions that are asked. 



VI WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

3. Put your pamphlet out of sight. Try to recall the important 
facts discussed in the lesson. 

4. Open your pamphlet to the lesson again, and glance over it 
rapidly. See how many of the important points you forgot. 

5. Repeat Nos. 3 and 4 until you are sure you have all the 
important facts in mind. 

6. Place in a special section in your note-book, separate from the 
section in which you take your class notes : 

a. Any questions you want to ask, 

b. Any points that are not clear to you. 

c. Additional illustrations of the lesson that you are able to find. 

d. Your summaries and outlines. 

7. Read over the summary that you have made in your note-book 
as a brief review of the lesson just before the class begins. 

Directions Concerning Class Discussion. 

1. Always have your note-book at the class recitation. 

2. At the beginning of class each day, place on the teacher's desk 
any outline, graph, map, or summary that your lesson for that day's 
work directs you to have ready. Such exercises of the previous day 
will be returned to you. Keep these all together in the order in 
which you do them. 

8. Be prepared to do from the notes you have made, any black- 
board work — maps, charts, or outlines — that is called for. 

4. Be ready to summarize any part of the work, either in review 
or the lesson for the day. 

5. Make sure that questions and exercises that you do not clearly 
understand are explained in class. 

6. You should be always ready to take a test on work that kas 
been completed. 

How TO Review. 

1. Frequent review is essential to an understanding of the mate- 
rial in the pamphlet. You cannot expect to remember all of the facts 
and conclusions you learn day by day. You must therefore make a 
practice of selecting the important facts and conclusions of each day 's 
lesson and making summaries of them. Ask yourself such questions 
as these: 

a. What important fact does this lesson bring out? 

b. How is it related to previous lessons? 

c. What conclusions are to be drawn from this page, or from 

this lesson ? 



FOREWORD TO THE PUPIL VU 

d. What problem grows out of the facts of this lesson? 

2. Read over your summary of the previous day's work before 
beginning to study the new lesson. Once a week review the principal 
facts and conclusions of the week's work. 

3. Tests covering each pamphlet will be sent to the teachers to be 
given to the pupils at the completion of the pamphlet, and also a test 
to cover the entire term's work. Use these directions for studying and 
for reviewing the entire course to make sure that you have mastered 
the important material. 

Summary Chart of the Course. 

One of the important steps in the year's work is for each pupil 
to make a large chart on which the important facts of each pamphlet 
may be summarized. This chart is to be begun as soon as one pamphlet 
is finished. Large manila sheets 24 x 36 inches may well be used. Each 
sheet is to be divided into six columns of equal width, and in each 
column the pupil writes the principal points of each pamphlet. At the 
close of the year, and of the last pamphlet, the chart should show all 
the very important facts and conclusions that you have covered in the 
seventh grade. The pamphlets will be on the following subjects : 
Immigration; Conservation of Natural Resources; American Indus- 
tries and Business ; Education and Our Schools ; The American City ; 
The Culture of Our People and Those of Other Lands; The American 
Government ; The United States and World Affairs. 



A Foreword to the Teacher will be found in Pamphlet No. 1 of the 
Seventh Grade Series, "America and Her Immigrants." This ex- 
plains how the pamphlets have been made, and gives suggestions for 
the teacher's use of them. This Foreword has also been reprinted as 
a separate folder, and a copy is being sent with each set of pamphlets 
ordered for class use. 



WESTWARD MO\^MKNT AND TRANSPORTATION 



A SUGGESTED SCHEDULE OF LESSONS wiU be found at 
the end of this pamphlet. We suggest that you use it as a guide in 
planning your assignments. 



I. LONG DISTANCE CONNECTIONS 

THE WORLD GROWS SMALLER EVERY DAY 




(American Telephone and Telegraph Company) 

Fig. 1 



A. Beating Time and Space 

"What's that? What's that?" Bob Sanderson, New York office 
manager of the Flick Rubber Company Ltd. nearly dropped the tele- 
phone receiver in his excitement. "Say that again, Mac." 

Back over the wire came the voice of the western manager in his 
Chicago office : "I say, old man Steiger tells me that the big Thompson 
rubber contract is to be awarded tomorrow morning at a special meet- 
ing of the Continental Trust. Now get this and in a hurry, too. Either 
the chief or you must be in Chicago tomorrow. Better both come. ' ' 

"Can't be done, Mac. Chief is at his place at Norwalk." 

To the TeacJier: Have the pupils read the entire 
first lessoiii at one sitting. These little episodes have 
been written to give them a deep feeling for the way 
our world is bound together by truly marvelous de- 
velopments in transportation and communication. 
Bring out the contrasts betAveen the old and the new. 
Do not analyze the episodes for details. The second 
lesson will strengthen the contrast between early 
and modern forms of travel. 



2 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

"It's got to be done. There's millions in this contract. Mr. Flick 
must be on hand to present our case. Meeting's at ten, room 717, 
Exchange Building. See that he gets the Twentieth Century Limited. 
It 's now 2 :32 Eastern Standard Time. The Century leaves New York 
at 2:45. You can get a cab and catch it. It stops at Harmon for 
five minutes to leave the electric engine and put on the locomotive. 
You've got an hour and a quarter to get him from Norwalk to Har- 
mon and thirteen minutes to make it yourself. Rush it." 

Sanderson hung up the receiver and things hummed in the New 
York offices of the Flick Rubber Company. In two minutes the senior 
partner was acquainted with the situation over the private telephone 
that connected his country home at Norwalk with his New York City 
office. In five more his chauffeur was driving the big roadster out of 
the garage. Questions thrown at the chief concerning important busi- 
ness matters of the day were answered by a short, "I'll wire you 
what to do from the Century. Stay near the telephone all day, and 
keep in touch with Western Union. I'll relay everything to you." 

Five minutes later their automobile was eating up the twenty-five 
mile stretch to Harmon, and when the Twentieth Century Limited 
pulled into the station Mr. Flick was waiting at the platform. 

"Close connection, sir?" asked Sanderson as he boarded the train. 

"Yes, but we made it easily. Couldn't have done that twenty 
years ago. Good long-distance service, private wires, sixty horse-power 
motor, fine roads, and trains absolutely on time — that's what's going 
to put this over, Sanderson. Now we've got nineteen hours to get 
ready to sell Thompson our rubber tomorrow morning in Chicago. 
Let's get to work in my state-room. Tell me all you know about this 
and we'll get in touch with Mac in Chicago by w^ire. " 

He chuckled as he settled down to work. "It's rather giving the 
slip to old Joe Telford. He's expecting me to speak at a Chamber 
of Commerce dinner this evening. I sent word that I had an impor- 
tant errand out of town. Guess he'll think so when he finds out what 
it was. He's the only rubber man I'm afraid of, with Gorham out in 
California on a vacation." 

The next morning at breakfast on the train he read an item in the 
paper mentioning Telford's speech and his own absence from the 
New York dinner. Sharp at 9 :45 the great Cefltury rolled quietly into 
the La Salle Street station at Chicago, and the two men stepped into 
a waiting car that MacLean, the Chicago manager, had ready, drove 
quickly to the Exchange Building, and appeared to the astonishment 
of their Western competitors at the offices of the Continental Trust. 

But a moment later it was Mr. Flick's turn to be surprised, for 
as he greeted the business men in the room he was amazed to receive 
a smiling handshake from the man he had left behind him. 



BEATING TIME AND SPACE 3 

"The Twentieth Century of the New York Central, or the Broad- 
way Limited of the Pennsylvania may be fast — but let me tell you 
something that's faster, John Flick," said Telford. 

' ' How did you get here 1 ' ' exclaimed Flick in the midst of a chorus 
of laughter from the group around the table. ' ' Sanderson said he was 
positive that you were at a meeting in your office when the Century 
left, and I have just read the mention of your speech last night." 

' ' That 's right, I made it — and it was right there that I heard about 
this meeting. But I'm here anyway. Want to know how I did it? 
You thought you'd steal a march on me. Well, you forgot just one 
thing — the airplane service from Long Island, New York, to 'little old' 
Gi-ant Park, Chicago. I caught the tubes under the river to the flying 
field on Long Island at 10 :20 last night, bought the rights in a plane, 
practically had to kidnap an air pilot, and just got out of his machine 
over in the park five minutes ago. Eleven hours and fifteen minutes 
on the way, and lost time at that. Fine ride, though. Had motor 
trouble near Cleveland and had to come down for what seemed like a 
week. Fog botliered my pilot, too. And now, gentlemen, will you 
let me tell you why you should buy Telford Rubber for your tire plant, 
and not my old friend Flick 's product ? ' ' 

"We'll be glad to hear from you both," said the presiding officer, 
"but it's only fair for you to know that you'll have to make better 
terms than we think you can, to beat the offer that John Gorham 
made us before either of you got here." 

"Has Gorham been telegraphing from the Coast?" asked Mr. 
Flick. 

"No," was the answer. "Gorliam is up-to-date as well as you gen- 
tlemen. He's been talking to us by radio. We have our own amplifier 
in the room, and he certainly made us a convincing speech. Now we 
are ready to hear from you, and we'll listen to you in the order of 
your arrival." 



Who won the contract does not belong to this story, for the point 
of it is simply to show that distance is not the obstacle that it used to 
be hundreds or even dozens of years ago. 



4 AMERICAN FARMER, OLD STYLE 

Life on the Roa<J to 1900. 




m^^^M ^^ 



(From: "Facts and Figures of the Automobile Industry, 1922." National Auto- 
mobile Chamber of Commerce, New York City.) 

Fig. 2 



"Well, how's things in Clay Township?" 

"Goin' fairly well, Jake; they's askin' 'bout you in there today." 

"I ain't ben to town fer three months. Now my boy John's gone, 
they ain't nobody to look after the stock for a whole day while I'm 
away. ' ' 

' ' Purty hard trip fer the horses too. Daisy is the only horse I e 'n 
drive now, and it's purty long tug fer the old mare. I don't make it 
often myself. Had to take a letter in to post, and I stopped at the 
parson's house. Suppose you're going there." 

' ' Wasn 't plannin ' to. Think T ought ? ' ' 

' ' Purty bad state of affairs. ' ' 

"What d'you mean?" 

"Ain't you heard?" 

' ' Nope. Ain 't heard nothin '. ' ' 
Ain 't heard the parson got run over by one of them new-fangled 
old automobiles, and expectin' to die any minit?" 

"No, I ain't heard nothing — never do out our way. Them miser- 
able things going to kill everybody— that 's all they's good for. Too 
bad. I'll go right in." 

"So long, Jim." 



AMERICAN FARMER, NEW STYLE 5 

Life on the Road After 1910. 




Fiom Farm Life 

I From: "Facis and Figures of the Automobile Industry, 1922." National Cham- 
ber of Commerce, New York City.) 

Fig. 3 

"Well, how's things out your way?" 

"Fine, sir. I"m taking the family over to Saratoga Springs." 

"Where's that?" 

"Oh, just a drive of 40 miles from here." 

"Leaving the farm to look after itself?" 

"Sure, we did two weeks' work yesterday afternoon with the 
machine hay-loader. Put in 20 tons, while the traction cultivator was 
finishin ' up the corn. Ain 't you got anythin ' to do in Colorado ? ' ' 

"Well, we had a couple of weeks free and thought we'd try the 
new Lincoln Highway, and might go south over the Dixie. They're 
great roads. The hotels are pretty full just now, but we wired ahead 
and have got fixed up everywhere so far." 

"Automobile's a great invention, ain't it? So long." 



b WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

C. When Wires First Talked, 1876 

On March 10, 1876, two Americans did something that no human 
being- had ever done before. They talked to each other when far apart, 
For centuries men had been trying to accomplish this feat. Thirty 
years before, in 1844, Samuel Morse had taught the world how to 
send sounds- — clicks — over a wire so that by a code (the Morse code) 
people could send long distance messages to each other. But no one 
had ever heard words except when near enough to shout through the 
air. In 1874 and 1875 Alexander Graham Bell, a poverty-stricken 
teacher of music, had been trying to invent a way of sending the dif- 
ferent sounds of the \'oice over the wires. "For forty weeks — long, 
exasperating weeks — the telephone could do no more than gasp and 
make strange, inarticulate noises. Its educators had not learned how 
to manage it. Then on March 10, 1876, it talked." Mr. Bell 
was in his work-room calling into the crude transmitter, the receiver 
at the ear of his assistant, Watson; it said distinctly — "Mr. Watson, 
come here, I ivant you." Watson, who was at the lower end of the 
wire, in the basement, dropped the receiver and rushed with wild joy 
up three flights of stairs to tell the glad tidings to Bell. "I can hear 
you!" he shouted, breathlessly. "I can hear the words!" 

And that was only 46 years ago! Your fathers and mothers, at 
least your grandfathers and grandmothers, can tell you of the days 
when you could not go to the telephone and ask the grocer to send a 
pound of coffee, or call up the school office and report that Mary was 
ill and couldn't come today; or ring the depot and ask if the 7:17 
was on time. 



■ D. Telling the President He's Elected in 
1829 AND 1922 

1829 

Toward the close of a cold December afternoon in 1828, a jaded 
horse and rider laboriously plodded along the Lebanon Road to Nash- 
ville, Tennessee. Fine rolling country it was that the horseman had 
been riding through. From Washington he had come up the winding 
Potomac, over the Appalachians, down through the gaps in the moun- 
tains, and on over the new, rough Kentucky and Tennessee roads. As 
he neared Lebanon on the Nashville road, a passing farmer directed 
him on his way: "General Andrew Jackson? Oh, yes, straight ahead 
and first road to your left. It's The Hermitage you want. That's 
where Andy lives. Big house, sets back amongst the trees. Fine 
place he has. Hope you have no bad news for 'Old Hickory.' " 

The messenger from Washington smiled. "No, good news I hope 



TELLING THE PRESIDENT 7 

hell think it is."' He leaned closer and spoke a few crisp words. The 
other gaped in astonishment. "You don't say! Not our Andy Jack- 
son ! \yhat will they do now down at Washington ? I '11 hurry on 
and tell folks the news." 

An hour later the lone rider pulled his tired and sweating horse 
up at the door of The Hermitage. 

' ' Is the President at home 1 ' ' came the query to the surprised col- 
ored servants gathered at the door. 

"The President — you don't tell me our Massa's done gone and been 
elected President!" 

"That's what I do. I have the official notice here. Been on the 
road from Washington four full w-eeks. He was elected November 
10th. This is December 9th. And a turrible trip it's been too. Used 
17 horses trying to break a record. Roads bad, and couldn't make 
any time at all. People around here don't seem to mind the mud. 
They been telling me the road's 'middling good' ever since I left 
Cumberland, three weeks ago. And the mud's been over my boot-tops 
a third of the way. "^ 



1922 

And how soon does the newly-elected President of the United States 
in these days hear of his election ? A week later ? Two days ? A 
month ? 

No, the voting stops, say, at 5 o'clock in the afternoon. By the 
time the Presidential candidate is eating dinner, the campaign offices 
at his home are buzzing with action. Special telegraph and' telephone 
wires are connected to the central stations of the large cities, messen- 
gers are going and coming. By 7 o'clock the candidate's family is 
on tiptoes with excitement. Telephone calls come constantly. 

"Tell the chief that 2141 up-state precincts in New York State 
give him a lead of 7,800." 

"Omaha, Nebraska, goes for our man by 22,000. It looks like a 
landslide in the Middle West." 

A personal call comes from the candidate's son in Chicago. "Dad,, 
the Middle West is going for you strong. Three-fourths of districts 
in Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa have wired in their returns.. 
You are leading in every state. ' ' 

"Got anything on the southwest, Bob? We can't get a word here." 

"Yes. But, just as we thought, the farmers are getting us for the 
vote on agricultural machinery. However, cheer up. Vote's small in 
that country, and it's always been conceded to go the other way." 

The Central Committee of the Eastern Campaign Headquarters 



^This story is based on the facts of the election and notification of 
President Jackson. 



8 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

call to estimate the possibilities of the election. As the evening wears 
on, the metropolitan dailies begin to issue ' ' extras. ' ' Rapidly the total 
votes for the different candidates are tabulated and telegraphed all 
over the United States. Western Union, Postal Telegraph, American 
Telephone and Telegraph, Radiograph and Radiophone — all combine 
with the Associated Press, Federated, and United Press agencies to 
assemble and carry the news to every large city, town, and even to 
outlying villages barely on the fringes of telephone or wireless com- 
munication : "A neiv President is elected!" 

By 10 or 11 — midnight at the latest, unless the election is very, 
very close — the successful candidate can go to bed knowing that he 
will be the next President of the United States. And in the morning 
half a dozen newspapers recount for him state by state from the 48 
corners of his country how it was done. 

Times have certainly changed since the days of Andrew Jackson ! 



E. In Your Parents* Childhood No Such Headlines as 
These Filled the Newspapers 

Biggest Air Liner Begun in England; 

Expected to Cross Atlantic in One Day 

Flying Police to Arrest in the Air 

. Aviators IV ho Violate City Ordinance 

1,300 PLANES READYAS^MAIL CARRIERS 

In 1803 it took Washington Irving 59 days to cross the Atlantic 
Ocean in a sailing vessel. Now a great air liner is being constructed 
to cross the ocean in one day I Fast Trans-Atlantic steamers go from 
New York to Liverpool regularly in six days. A 10 or 12-day boat 
is a "slow boat" today and much cheaper because it is slow. What 
would Benjamin Franklin in 1776 or Jefferson in 1787, when it took 
them almost three months to travel to France, have thought of such 
ocean travel? Or what would the travellers who took 6 days to go 
from Albany to Buffalo on the ^ast passenger packets of the EHe 
Canal, have thought of tearing over the roads 70 miles an hour while 
sleeping comfortably in the E^npire State Express, and making the 
trip in 10 hours ! 

Times have certainly changed ! 



PRESIDENT SPEAKS TO HIS PEOPLE 



F. 

President Addresses New 
York Convention by Radio- 
phone From Washington 



IVIadison Square Garden Overflow- 
Crowd of 10,000 Hears Voice 
of the President Clearly 



RADIOPHONE AND AMPLIFIERS 
A GREAT SUCCESS 



New York City, May 10, 1922.— 
Yesterday the impossible happened. 
The President of the United States, 
sitting- quietlv in his White House of- 
fice at Washington, talked to 17,000 
people in New York City! If ar- 
rangements had only been made, he 
might just as well have spoken to mill- 
ions of his countrymen. The great 
amplifiers which had been installed in 
the theatre and connected to the radio- 
phone at Washington carried his voice 
to every corner of the enonuous hall. 
Outside a croAvd of 10,000 people who 
had been unable to get into the giant 
building heard the same voice, the same 
words with perfect clearness. At last 
an American President can really speak 
to his people. 



G, Music by Wireless 

"Walter, can you and Ethel leave what you are doing and come 
over for a while?" 

Amesbury had just put down his evening paper to answer the 
telephone call from his friend and near-by neighbor in Forest Park. 

"Why? WHiat'sup?" 

"My new amplifier is all set up and works perfectly. We just 
heard a lecture all over the room — whole family — on health work, 
given by a man over at the New Jersey Radio Broadcasting station. 
And the announcement just came that John McCormick is to sing 
at 8:15." 



10 



WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 



"Isn't that fine! AVe'll come right over. No need to go way 
downtown to the Auditorium to hear the great singers or lecturers! 
Just lounge around comfortably in your living room and hear them! 
Say, that beats the phonograph and the telephone, or any of the 
new things. I'll get Ethel and the children and run over." 



See how well the artist has shown the American business man 
in the picture at the beginning of the lesson, with his trolleys, trains, 
autos, trucks, steamships, aeroplanes, and telephone assembled, ready 
to do his bidding. He can turn to the telephone at any minute and 
get into conversation with a person in any part of the country. He 
can get on a trolley and go to the next town or on a train and go a 
thousand miles in 24 hours. He can go from place to place in an 
automobile, and can deliver his merchandise to near-by points by 
truck. The steamship will take him around the world in a month. 
And soon, say the headlines, he will be able to go from New York 
to London in one day ! 

These, and noAv the radio, are the things that make the world 
seem smaller every day. 




GETTING SMALLER EVERY DAY. 

— Brown in the Chicago Daily News. 



:)in: "Literary Digest" for June 17, 1922, by permission.) 

WTiat makes the world grow smaller every day? 
Fig. 4 



BEATING TIME AND SPACE 11 

QUESTIONS FOR YOU TO ANSWER 

1. What do you think these little stories illustrate? 

2. Which do you think is the most remarkable? 

3. Do you know any interesting or unusual stories that will match 

these? Tell the class any that you know. 

4. See if you can find in the newspapers or magazines at home 

clippings that illustrate the same things. 



II. LITTLE JOURNEYS 

Did you realize before that we had learned to do things so mar- 
velously fast and effectively? What an amazing thing it was for 
MacLean to call Sanderson on the telephone 1000 miles away ! And 
only forty-six years ago people had never made wires talk! Think 
of talking — yes, actually talking- — hearing the words and the inflection 
of the voice as clearly as in the next room, with no wires or tubes 
or anything but just the air. 

How clearly the story of Mr. Flick and Mr. Telford with their 
sixty horse-power motors and their hundred-mile-an-hour airplanes 
lets us understand the difficulties of traveling a hundred years ago. 
Could you telephone down to the Grand Central Station in New York 
in 1800 and ask for a reservation on the 9:19 to Boston? Not a bit 
of it. There Avasn't any 9:19, nor any station, nor any railroad. 
There were just rough, muddy, dangerous country roads. Yet the 
people had to travel. They went back and forth from New York 
to Boston, and from New York to Philadelphia, and to Baltimore, a 
great many of them. Our great-grandfathers have told us the stories 
of life on the Boston post road in those days. Such vivid impressions 
were made on travelers that many of them kept diaries of what hap- 
pened. Years later these were printed, so that now we can learn what 
travel was like in earlier times. 

Here are some little snatches from some interesting diaries. Glance 
over the dates of the different stories. Can you guess why these 
particular stories have been chosen? Do you see how they will tell 
you step by step how traveling grew speedier and speedier, and at 
the same time probably safer? 

Our first story is from 200 years ago. In 1702 Mrs. Sarah Kemble 
Knight, a Boston widow, needed to go to New York to transact some 
business. In those days every traveler had to make his own arrange- 
ments, engaging guides and horses from point to point and dismissing 
the old ones as the new ones were picked up. In her journal she gives 
this account of one of the many hardships she had to meet on her 
journey of two weeks from city to city: 

A. The Journey From Boston to New^ York Taken by 
Madam Sarah Kemble Knight in 1704 
Tuesday, October the third, about 8 o'clock in the morning, I with 
the post, proceeded forward without observing anything remarkable ; 



FROM BOSTON TO NEW YORK IN 1704 13 

and about two, afternoon, arrived at the post's second stage, where 
the western post met him and exchanged letters. Here, having called 
for something to eat, the woman brought in a twisted thing like a 
cable, but something whiter; and laying it on the board, tugged for 
life to bring it into a capacity to spread; which having with great 
pains accomplished, she served in a dish of pork and cabbage, I sup- 
pose the remains of dinner. The sauce was of a deep purple, which 
I thought was boiled in her dye kettle; the bread was Indian, and 
everything on the table service agreeable to these. I, being hungry, 
got a little down ; but my stomach was soon cloyed, and what cabbage 
I swallowed served me for a cud the whole day after. 

Having here discharged the ordinary for self and guide, (as I 
understood was the custom), about three in the afternoon went on 
with my third guide, w^ho rode very hard; and having crossed Provi- 
dence Ferry, we came to a river which they generally ride through. 
But I dared not venture ; so the post got a lad and canoe to carry me 
to the other side, and he rode through and led my horse. The canoe 
was very small and shallow, so that when we were in she seemed 
ready to take in water, which greatly terrified me, and caused me to 
be very circumspect, sitting with my hands fast on each side, my 
eyes steady, not daring so much as to lodge my tongue a hair's breadth 
more on one side of my mouth than the other, nor so much as think 
of Lot's wife, for a wry thought would have overset our wherry; 
but was soon put out of this pain, by feeling the canoe on shore, 
which I as soon almost saluted with my feet; and rewarding my 
sculler, again mounted and made the best of our way forward. The 
road here was very even and the day pleasant, it being now near 
sunset ; but the post told me we had near 14 miles to ride to the next 
stage (where we were to lodge). I asked him of the rest of the road, 
foreseeing we must travel in the night. He told me there was a bad 
river we were to ride through, which was so very fierce a horse could 
sometimes hardly stem it; but it was but narrow, and we should soon 
be over. I cannot express the concern of mind this relation set me 
in; no thoughts but those of the dangerous river could entertain my 
imagination, and they were as formidable as various, still tormenting 
me with blackest ideas of my approaching fate — sometimes seeing 
myself drowning, otherwhiles drowned, and at the best like a holy 
sister just come out of a spiritual bath in dripping garments. . . . 

Thus, absolutely lost in thought, and dying with the very thoughts 
of drowning, I came up with the post, who I did not see till even 
with his horse ; he told me he stopped for me, and we rode on very 
deliberately a few paces, when we entered a thicket of trees and shrubs, 
and I perceived by the horse's going we were on the descent of a hill, 
which as we came nearer the bottom, was totally dark with the trees 



14 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

that surrounded it; but I knew by the going of the horse we had 
entered the water, which my guide told me was the hazardous river 
he had told me of; and he, riding up close to my side, bid me not 
fear — we should be over immediately. I now rallied all the courage 
1 was mistress of, knowing that 1 must either venture my fate of 
drowning, or be left like the children in the w^ood. So, as the post 
bid me, I gave reins to my nag; and sitting as steady as just before 
in the canoe, in a few minutes got safe to the other side, which he 
told me was the Narragansett country. 



Have you ever heard of Benjamin Franklin 1 You will read about 
him a number of times in these pamphlets — how he was an inventor 
and helped discover electricity in the clouds, and how he made the 
Franklin Open Stove, which many people still use today; how he 
became a printer and published a newspaper; how in after years he 
became a great and rich man and helped the colonies to win the 
Revolutionary War against England. He made many travels in his 
lifetime but not one was more exciting to him than the one that he 
took from Boston to Philadelphia in 1723. Young Franklin had 
fallen into trouble which made it wise for him to seek his fortunes 
somewhere else. He chose Philadelphia. As a poor boy, of course 
he could not aiford the expensive kind of travel used by Mrs. Knight, 
so he went by water, which was cheaper, than travel by land then 
as it still is. This is his account of part of his journey : 

B. Journey From New York to Philadelphia, Made by 
Benjamin Franklin in 1723 

I set out . . . in a boat for Amboy, leaving my chest and 
things to follow me round by sea. 

In crossing the bay, we met with a squall that tore our rotten 
sails to pieces, prevented our getting into the Kill and drove us upon 
Long Island. In our way, a drunken Dutchman, who was a passenger 
too, fell overboard ; when he was sinking, I reached through the water 
to his shock pate, and drew him up, so that we got him in again. 
His ducking sobered him a little, and he went to sleep. . . . 

When we drew near the island, we found it was at a place where 
there could be no landing, there being a great surf on the stony 
beach. So we dropt anchor and swung round towards the* shore. 
Some people came down to the water edge and hallow 'd to us, as we 
did to them, but the wind was so high, and the surf so loud, that we 
could not hear so as to understand each other. There were canoes 
on the shore, and we made signs and hallow 'd that they should fetch 
us, but they either did not understand us. or thought it impracticable, 



FROM NEW YORK TO PHILADELPHIA IN 1723 1& 

SO they went away, and night coming on, we had no remedy but to 
wait till the wind should abate; and, in the meantime, the boatman 
and I concluded to sleep, if we could ; and so crowded into the scuttle, 
with the Dutchman, who was still wet, and the spray beating over 
the head of our boat, leak'd thro' to us, so that we were soon almost 
as wet as he. In this manner we lay all night with very little rest; 
but, the wind abating the next day, we made a shift to reach Amboy 
before night, having been thirty hours on the water, without victuals, 
or any drink but a bottle of filthy rum, the water Ave sailed on 
being salt/ 

In the evening I found myself very feverish, and went in to bed ; 
but, having read somewhere that cold water drank plentifully was 
good for a fever, I follow 'd the prescription, sweat plentifully most 
of the night, my fevei' left me, and in the morning, crosshig the ferry, 
I proceeded on my journey on foot, having fifty miles to Burlington, 
where I was told I should find boats that would carry me the rest of 
the way to Philadelphia. 

It rained very hard all the day ; I was thoroughly soak 'd, and by 
noon a good deal tired ; so I stopt at a poor inn, M'here I staid all 
night, beginning now to wish that I had never left home. I cut sO' 
miserable a figure, too, that I found, by the questions ask'd me, I was 
suspected to be some runaway servant, and in danger of being taken 
up on that suspicion. However, I proceeded the next day, and got 
in the evening to an inn, within eight or ten miles of Burlington, 
kept by one Dr. Brown. . . . 

At his house I lay that night, and the next morning reach 'd 
Burlington, but had the mortification to find that the regular boats 
were gone a little before my coming, and no other expected to ga 
before Tuesday, this being Saturday ; wherefore I returned to an old 
woman in the town, of whom I had bought ginger-bread to eat on 
the water, and I ask'd her advice. She invited me to lodge at her 
house till a passage by water should offer; and being tired with my 
foot travelling, I accepted the invitation. . . . However, walking 
in the evening by the side of the river, a boat came by, which I 
found was going towards Philadelphia, with several people in her. 
They took me in, and, as there was no wind, we row 'd all the way ; 
and about midnight, not having yet seen the city, some of the com- 
pany were confident we must have passed it, and would row no 
farther ; the others knew not where we were ; so we put toward the 
shore, got into a creek, landed near an old fence, with the rails of 
which w^e made a fire, the night being cold, in October, and there we 
remained till daylight. Then one of the company knew the place to 
be Cooper's Creek,, a little above Philadelphia, which we saw as soon 



'Franklin, Benjamin: Autobiography of, pacres 61-64. Putnam, New York. 



16 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

as we got out of the creek, and arriv'd there about eight or nine 
'clock on the Sunday morning, and landed at the Market-street wharf. 



In 1803 the chief settlements in the northern parts of the Eastern 
states had been established either as posts for trading with hunters 
and trappers or in connection with military defenses. It was one of 
these simple villages that Washington Irving visited in this year. 
The fott of course was already a thing of the past, for the French 
had lost all rights to the region forty years before. It was still too 
early for any dense settlement in this district because there were 
such great expanses of open land to the south, but by 1853 the dreams 
of 1803 had come true. The rivers are the first natural highways in 
new countries, and the first large settlements are always scattered 
along their banks. Here is the development as Washington Irving 
tells it in the first half of the 1800 's: 

C. Travelling in the St. Lawrence River Region as It Was 
IN 1803 AND 1853, Described by Washington Irving 

"September 19, 1853. 

"One of the most interesting circumstances of my tour was the 
sojourn of a day at Ogdensburg, at the mouth of the Oswegatchie 
River, where it empties into the St. Lawrence, I had not been there 
since I visited it fifty years since, in 1803, when I was but twenty 
years of age; when I made an expedition through the Black River 
country to Canada. ... All the country then was a wilderness; 
we floated down the Black River in a scow; we toiled through forests 
in wagons drawn by oxen ; we slept in hunters ' cabins, and were once 
four-and-twenty hours without food; but all was romance to me. 

"Arrived on the banks of the St. Lawrence, we put up at Mr. 
Ogden's agent, who was quartered in some rude buildings belonging 
to a ruined French fort at the mouth of the Oswegatchie. What 
happy days I passed there! rambling about the woods with the young 
ladies; or paddling with them in Indian canoes on the limpid waters 
of the St. Lawrence; or fishing about the rapids and visiting the 
Indians, who still lived on islands in the river. Everything was so 
grand and so silent and solitary. I don 't think any scene in life made 
a more delightful impression upon me. 

"Well — here I was again after a lapse of fifty years. I found a 
populous city occupying both banks of the Oswegatchie, connected by 
bridges. It was the Ogdensburg, of which a village plot had been 
planned at the time of our visit. I sought the old French fort where 
we had been quartered — not a trace of it was left. I sat under a tree 
on the site and looked round upon what I had known as a wilderness — 



CHARLES DICKENS AND THE STAGE-COACH 17 

now teeming with life — crowded with habitations — the Oswegatchie 
River dammed up and encumbered by vast stone-mills — the broad 
St. Lawrence ploughed by immense steamers."^ 



You have probably heard of the English author, Charles Dickens; 
you may even have read some of his books. Well, back in 1842 — 
eighty j^ears ago — he came over on a steam-packet to visit America. 
Of course he found many things quite different here from in England. 
One of the things which amused him was our stage-coaches, for it was 
by these that a great deal of the travelling was done in America at 
that time. Here is his description of one of the journeys he took in 
this way. 

D. As Dickens Saw America in 1842 

After remaining here [Baltimore] a couple of days I bound myself 
to a rigid adherence to the plan I had laid down so recently, and 
resolved to set forward on our western journey without any more 
delay. Accordingly, having reduced the luggage within the smallest 
possible compass (by sending back to New York, to be afterward 
forwarded to us in Canada, so much of it as was not absolutely 
wanted) ; and having procured the necessary credentials to banking- 
houses on the way ; and having, moreover, looked for two evenings 
at the setting sun, with as well-defined an idea of the country before 
us as if we had been going to travel to the very centre of that planet; 
we left Baltimore by another railway at half past eight in the morn- 
ing, and reached the town of York, some sixty miles off, by the early 
dinner-time of the hotel, which was the starting-place of the four- 
horse coach wherein we were to proceed to Harrisburg. 

This conveyance, the box of which I was fortunate enough to 
secure, had come down to meet us at the railroad station, and was as 
muddy and cumbersome as usual. As more passengers were waiting 
for us at the inn door, the coachman observed under his breath, in 
the usual self-communicative voice, looking the while at his mouldy 
harness as if it were to that he was addressing himself, 

"I expect that we shall want the big coach." 

I could not help wondering within myself what the size of this 
big coach might be, and how many persons it might be designed to 
hold, for the vehicle which was too small for our purpose was some- 
thing larger than two English heavy night coaches. My speculations 
were speedily set at rest, however, for as soon as we had dined there 
came rumbling up the street, shaking its sides like a corpulent giant, 
a kind of barge on wheels. After much blundering and backing, it 



^Irving:, Washington: "The Life and Letters of," pages 54-55. G. P. Put- 
ram's Sons, New York. 



18 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

slopped at the door, rolling heavilj' from side to side when its other 
motion had ceased, as if it had taken cold in its damp stable, and 
between that and the having been required in its dropsical old age 
to move at any faster pace than a walk, were distressed by shortness 
of wind, 

"If here ain't the Ilarrisburg mail at last, and dreadful bright 
and smart to look at, too," cried an elderly gentleman, in some 
•excitement. . . . 

They packed twelve people inside, and the luggage (including 
such trifles as a large rocking-horse and a good sized dining-table) 
being at last made fast upon the roof, we started off in great state. 

At the door of another hotel there was another passenger to be 
taken up. 

"Any room, sir?" cries the new passenger to the coachman. 

"Well, there's room enough," replies the coachman, without get- 
ting down, or even looking at him. 

' ' There ain 't no room at all, sir, ' ' bawls a gentleman inside. Which 
another gentleman (also inside) confirms, by predicting that the 
attempt to introduce any more passengers "won't fit nohow." 

The new passenger, without any expression of anxiety, looks into 
the coach, and then looks up at the coachman: "Now, how do you 
mean to fix it?" says he, after a pause, "for I must go." 

The coachman employs himself in twisting the lash of the whip 
into a knot, and takes no more notice of the question, clearly signifying 
that it is anybody's business but his, and that the passengers would 
do well to fix it among themselves. In this state of things, matters 
seem to be approximating to a fix of another kind, when another inside 
passenger in a corner, who is nearly suffocated, cries faintly, "I'll 
get out." 

This is no matter of relief or self-congratulation to the driver, 
for his immovable philosophy is perfectly undisturbed by anything 
that happens in the coach. Of all things in the world, the coach would 
seem to be the very last upon his mind. The exchange is made, how- 
ever, and then the passenger who has given up his seat makes a third 
upon the box, seating himself in what he calls the middle; that is, 
with half his person on my legs and the other half on the driver's. 

"Go ahead, cap 'en," cries the colonel, who directs. 

"Go lang!" cries the cap 'en to his company, the horses, and 
away we go. 

We took up at a rural bar-room, after we had gone a few miles, 
an intoxicated gentleman, who climbed upon the roof among the 
luggage, and, subsequently slipping off without hurting himself, was 
seen in the distant perspective reeling back to the grogshop where 



CHARLES DICKENS AND THE STAGE-COACH 19 

we had found him. We also parted with more of our freight at dif- 
ferent times, so that, when we came to change horses, I was again 
alone outside. 

The coachmen always change with the horses, and are usually as 
dirty as the coach. The first was dressed like a very shabby English 
baker; the second like a Russian peasant, for he wore a loose purple 
camlet robe with a fur collar, tied round his waist with a party- 
colored worsted sash; gray trousers, light blue gloves, and a cap of 
bearskin. It had by this time come on to rain very heavily, and there 
was a cold damp mist besides, which penetrated to the skin. I was 
very glad to take advantage of a stoppage and get down to stretch 
my legs, shake the water off my greatcoat, and swallow the usual 
anti-temperance recipe for keeping out the cold. 

When I mounted to my seat again, I observed a new parcel lying 
on the coach roof, which I took to be a rather large fiddle in a brown 
bag. In the course of a few miles, however, I discovered that it had 
a glazed cap at one end and a pair of muddy shoes at the other; and 
farther observation demonstrated it to be a small boy in a snuff-colored 
coat, with his arms quite pinioned to his sides by deep forcing into 
his pockets. He was, I presume, a relative or friend of the coach- 
man's, as he lay a-top of the luggage with his face towards the rain; 
and, except when a change of position brought his shoes in contact 
with my hat, he appeared to be asleep. At last, on some occasion of 
our stopping, this thing slowly up reared itself to the height of three 
feet six, and, fixing its eyes on me, observed, in piping accents, with 
a complacent yawn half quenched in an obliging air of friendly 
patronage, "AA^ell, now, stranger, I guess you find this a 'most like an 
English afternoon, hey?" 

The scenery, which had been tame enough at first, was, for the 
last ten or twelve miles, beautiful. Our road wound through the 
pleasant valley of the Susquehanna ; the river, dotted with innumerable 
green islands, lay upon our right; and on the left, a steep ascent, 
craggy with broken rock, and dark with pine trees. . . . 

We crossed this river by a wooden bridge, roofed and covered in 
on all sides, and nearly a mile in length. It was profoundly dark ; 
perplexed, with great beams, crossing and recrossing it at every pos- 
sible angle ; and through the broad chinks and crevices in the floor, 
the rapid river gleamed, far down below^, like a legion of eyes. We 
had no lamps; and as the horses stumbled and floundered through 
this place, towards the distant speck of dying light, it seemed intermin- 
able. I really could not at first persuade myself, as we rumbled heav- 
ily on, filling the bridge with the hollow noises, and I held down my 
head to save it from the rafters above, but that I was in a painful 



20 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

dream ; for I have often dreamed of toiling through such places, and 
as often argued, even at the time, ''this cannot be reality." 

From Charles Dickens, "American Notes." 



E. Trammelling as Emerson Found It, 1851-1867 

The following paragraphs we have copied from letters which Ralph 
AValdo Emerson wrote back home during a lecture trip in the Middle 
West about the middle 1800 's. 

Pittsburgh, March 21, 1851. 

"Dear Lidian,— I arrived here last night after a very tedious and 
disagreeable journe}^ from Philadelphia, by railway and canal, with 
little food and less sleep ; two nights being spent in the rail-cars and 
the third on the floor of a canal-boat, where the cushion allowed me 
for a bed was crossed at the knees by another tier of sleepers as long- 
limbed as I, so that in the air was a wreath of legs ; and the night, 
which was bad enough, would have been far worse but that we were 
so thoroughly tired we could have slept standing." 

Think of the difference between then and now ! From Philadel- 
phia to Pittsburgh these days takes only eleven hours, and there are 
several trains a dav. 



"Marshall, February 17, 1860. 
"At Kalamazoo [Michigan] a good visit. . . . My chief adven- 
ture was the necessity of riding in a buggy forty-eight miles to Grand 
Rapids; then after lecture, twenty more on the return; and the next 
morning getting back to Kalamazoo in time for the train hither at 
twelve." 

Sixty years ago it was necessary to go from Kalamazoo to Grand 
Rapids by horse and buggy, and it took 48 hours. Although trains 
were running as far west as Chicago, these Michigan towns were too 
far north to be on the line of railroad. Today, however, they are both 
on main railway lines, and the trip can be made by train in an hour 
and a half. 



"1867. 
"Yesterday morning in bitter cold weather I had the pleasure of 

crossing the Mississippi in a skiff with Mr , we the 

sole passengers, and a man and a boy for oarsmen. I have no doubt 
they did their work better than the Harvard six could have done it, 



MOVING WEST BY COVERED WAGON 21 

as ipaich of the rowing was on the surface of fixed ice in fault of 
running water. But we arrived, without other accident than becoming 
almost fixed ice ourselves; but the long run to the Tepfer House, the 
volunteered rubbing of our hands by the landlord and clerks, and 
good fire restored us."^ 

How would Emerson cross the Mississippi in winter if he were 
living in our times? At some points there are bridges; at others, 
such as New Orleans, there are ferries which carry the trains across 
the river without even disturbing the passengers to leave their seats. 
If the crossing is made at night, the passengers might be asleep and 
not even know it. Think of the difference! 

F. A Journey From Lawrence, Kansas, to the Michigan Woods 

Near Grand Rapids, Made by Dr. Anna Howard Shaw 

IN 1859- 

Every detail of our journey through the wilderness is clear in my 
mind. At that time the railroad terminated at Grand Rapids, Mich- 
igan, and we covered the remaining distance — about one hundred 
miles — by wagon, riding through a dense and often trackless forest. 
My brother James met us at Grand Rapids with what, in those days, 
was called a lumber-wagon, but which had a horrible resemblance to a 
A-ehicle from the health department. My sisters and I gave it one 
cold look and turned from it; we were so pained by its appearance 
that we refused to ride in it through the town. Instead, we started 
off on foot, trying to look as if we had no association with it, and we 
climbed into the unwieldy vehicle only when the city streets were far 
behind us. Every available inch of space in the wagon was filled 
with bedding and provisions. As yet we had no furniture; we were 
to make that for ourselves when we reached our cabin ; and there was 
so little room for us to ride that we children walked by turns, while 
James, from the beginning of the journey to its end, seven days later, 
led our weary horses. 

To my mother, who was never strong, the whole experience must 
have been a nightmare of suffering and stoical endurance. For us 
children there were compensations. The expedition took on the char- 
acter of a high adventure, in which we sometimes had shelter and 
sometimes failed to find it, sometimes were fed, but often went hungry. 
We forded innumerable streams, the wheels of the heavy wagon sink- 
ing so deeply into the stream-beds that we often had to empty our 
load before we could get them out again. Fallen trees lay across our 
paths, rivers caused long detours, while again and again we lost our 
way or were turned aside by impenetrable forest tangles. 



lA Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson, bv James Elliot Cabot, pages 56(5. 
i. 569. Houghton-Mifflin Co.. Boston. 
2Shaw, Anna H.: "The Story of a Pioneer," pages 22-26. Harper's, 1915. 



22 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

Our first day's journey covered less than eight miles, and that 
night we stopped at a farm-house which was the last bit of civiliza- 
tion we saw. Early the next morning we were off again, making the 
slow progress due to the rough roads and our heavy load. At night 
we stopped at a place called Thomas's Inn, only to be told by the 
woman who kept it that there was nothing in the house to eat. Her 
husband, she said, had gone "outside" (to Grand Rapids) to get 
some flour, and had not returned — but she added that we could spend 
the night, if we chose, and enjoy shelter, if not food. We had pro- 
visions in our wagon, so we wearily entered, after my brother had 
got out some of our pork and opened a barrel of flour. With this 
help the woman made some biscuits, which were so green that my 
poor mother could not eat them. She had admitted to us that the 
one thing she had in the house was saleratus, and she had used this 
ingredient with an unsparing hand. When the meal was eaten she 
broke the further news that there were no beds. 

"The old woman can sleep with me,'' she suggested, "and* the 
girls can sleep on the floor. The boys will have to go to the barn." 

She and her bed were not especially attractive, and mother decided 
to lie on the floor with us. We had taken our bedding from the wagon, 
and we slept very well; but though she was usually superior to small 
annoyances, I think my mother resented being called an "old woman." 
She must have felt like one that night, but she was only about forty- 
eight years of age. 

At dawn the next morning we resumed our journey, and every 
day after that we were able to cover the distance demanded by the 
schedule arranged before we started. This meant that some sort of 
shelter usually awaited us at night. But one day we knew there 
would be no houses between the place we left in the morning and that 
where we were to sleep. The distance was about twenty miles, and 
when twilight fell we had not made it. In the back of the wagon mj' 
mother had a box of little pigs, and during the afternoon these had 
broken loose and escaped into the woods. We had lost much time in 
finding them, and we were so exhausted that when we came to a hut 
made of twigs and boughs we decided to camp in it for the night, 
though we knew nothing about it. My brother had unharnessed 
the horses, and my mother and sister were cooking dough-god — a 
mixture of flour, water, and soda, fried in a pan — when two men rode 
up on horseback and called my brother to one side. Immediately 
after the talk which followed James harnessed his horses again and 
forced us to go on, though by that time darkness had fallen. He told 
mother, but did not tell us children until long afterward, that a man 
had been murdered in the hut only the night before. The murderer 
was still at large in the woods, and the new-comers were members of 



MO\aNG WEST BY COVERED WAGON 23 

a posse who were searching for him. My brother needed no urging 
to put as many miles as he could between us and the sinister spot. 

In that fashion we made our way to our new home. The last day, 
like the first, we traveled only eight miles, but we spent the night in a 
house I shall never forget. It was beautifully clean, and for our 
evening meal its mistress brought out loaves of bread which were 
the largest we had ever seen. She cut great slices of this bread for 
us and spread maple sugar on them, and it seemed to us that never 
before had anything tasted so good. 

The next morning we made the last stage of our journey, our 
hearts filled with the joy of nearing our new home. We all had an 
idea that we were going to a farm, and we expected some resemblance 
at least to the prosperous farms we had seen in New England. My 
mother's mental picture was, naturally, of an English farm. Possibly 
she had visions of red barns and deep meadows, sunny skies and 
daisies. What we found awaiting us were the four walls and the 
roof of a good-sized log-house, standing in a small cleared strip of 
the wilderness, its doors and windows represented by square holes, 
its floor also a thing of the future, its whole effect achingly forlorn 
and desolate. It was late in the afternoon when we drove up to the 
opening that was its front entrance, and I shall never forget the look 
my mother turned upon the place. Without a word she crossed its 
threshold, and, standing very still, looked slowly around her. Then 
something within her seemed to give way, and she sank upon the 
ground. She could not realize even then, I think, that this was really 
the place father had prepared for us, that here he expected us to live. 
When she finally took it in she buried her face in her hands, and in 
that way she sat for hours without moving or speaking. For the 
first time in her life she had forgotten us; and we, for our part, 
dared not speak to her. We stood around her in a frightened group, 
talking to one another in whispers. Our little world had crumbled 
under our feet. Never before had we seen our mother give way to 
despair. 

Night began to fall. The woods became alive with night creatures, 
and the most harmless made the most noise. The owls began to hoot, 
and soon we heard the wildcat, whose cry — a screech like that of a 
lost and panic-stricken child — is one of the most appalling sounds of 
the forest. Later the wolves added their howls to the uproar, but 
though darkness came and we children whimpered around her, our 
mother still sat in her strange lethargy. 

At last my brother brought the horses close to the cabin and 
built fires to protect them and us. He was only twenty, but he showed 
himself a man during those early pioneer days. While he was picket- 



24 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

ing the horses and building his protecting fires my mother came to 
herself, but her face when she raised it was worse than her silence 
had been. . . , 

That night we slept on boughs spread on the earth inside the cabin 
-walls, and we put blankets before the holes which represented our 
doors and windows, and kept our watch-fires burning. Soon the other 
children fell asleep, but there was no sleep for me. I was only twelve 
years old, but my mind was full of fancies. Behind our blankets, 
swaying in the night wind, I thought I saw the heads and pushing 
shoulders of animals and heard their padded footfalls. 



III. THE RED MAN'S CONTINENT 
1600—1800 

"Long- Distance Connections" told you how quickly and how well 
business men are able to do things in this twentieth-century world of 
ours. The stories resound with such things as trains and telephones, 
airplanes and efficient business offices, stenographers, typewriters, 
roadsters, electric engines, and radiophones. You can see cities far 
apart tied closely together by human voices talking over wires or 
through the mysterious atmosphere; towns in the East and farming 
districts in the West connected by almost perfect railroad schedules. 
Yoii get the feeling for a marvellous mechanical ' ' civilization ' ' with 
alni*)st every provision made for transporting people with comfort and 
with safety, and yes, — more than anything else in America — with 
speed. It almost seems that we in America are consumed with a passion 
for doing things more and more rapidly, and that we put everything 
else second to speed. We shall study later how the strenuous pace at 
which our people live compares with the more leisurely and quiet ways 
of the people of some countries. Just now, however, we are interested 
to learn whether Americans have ahvays lived as they do now. 

"Little Journeys" helped give you a glimpse of travelling in earlier 
times. What a contrast the stories bring out! Muddy and rutty 
roads instead of macadamized highways; rickety and crowded stage- 
coaches v;ith drivers letting passengers look out for themselves, in 
place of the smooth-running express trains with Pullmans and diners 
and porters and careful trainmen watching over us at every moment ; 
dangerous old boats and sailing vessels in place of the fine river, lake, 
and ocean-going steamships of today. What changes in the past 
fifty years I 

The first of the "Little Journeys" told of travelling 200 years ago — 
between New York and Boston — an eastern trip by horseback and boat. 
The next one told how the bo5\ Benjamin Franklin, went from New 
York to Philadelphia, 1723, an eastern seaboard trip. The third, our 
story of Washington Irving in 1803, described travelling along the 
St. Lawrence River, — another eastern trip. Before 1800, people did 
practically all of their travelling along the Atlantic Coast. Why? 
Because that is where the towns and villages were in those days. 

The map of Fig. 5 shows where the people were living in colonial 
days, and in the first years of our national life — say from 1790 to 1800. 
Were there people in the Middle West? Was there a Chicago? No, 



26 



WESTWARD MOVEISIENT AND TRANSPORTATION 



not till 1834. Was there a white man's house at the southern bend 
of Lake Michigan, to say nothing of a town or a city? Was there a 
Detroit with a great automobile industry? A Cleveland? A Grand 
Eapids with thousands of furniture workers ? A St. Louis, or a Kansas 




The Enqhsh settled on 
' e land and built homes 
The westward movemen+ 
of these settlers beqan 
. x,^ before 1690. In 1750 
^^IQ there were 1,250,000 
^& English in America. 



Shows where the first 

were up to 1650 
Shows where the English settled 

between 1650 and 1700. 
Shows that the English had 

settled in the back country 

by 1750. 



Where the French, Enulisl 



and Indians were at different time.:^ 
Fig. 5 



City, or an Omaha, with great meat-packing plants? (If you do not 
know where these cities are, be sure to look them up on a map in 
your geography or on a wall-map.) 

Was there a Pittsburgh? Yes, a little village of 500 houses had 
grown up right at the very head of the Ohio River, where the 
Alleghany and Monongahela rivers join. As the pioneers poured 
through the mountains in this region Pittsburgh became indeed the 
"Gateway to the AVest." 

But if there were no cities, no great buildings, no fine roads, no 
canals, no trains, no broad acres of waving wheat covering our great 



THE RED man's CONTINENT 27 

prairies, no mining shafts, no oil gushers, no school buildings — if none 
of these things which we know today was here, — what was here? 

The Indian was here ; the wild woods and animals and forests and 
rivers and trails. 0^'er the different parts of what is now the United 
States, the red man roamed at large. Over the wooded Appalachian 
mountains he w^andered, the green lowlands of the coastal plain, the 
rolling prairies of Iowa and Nebraska, Kansas, and the Dakotas ; the 
rocky slopes of Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada, and the northern country 
of Oregon and Washington. In and out of the mountains, along the 
banks of the rivers went the red man 's trail, following in the footsteps 
of the four-footed animals, the buffalo, the deer, and the elk. Hun- 
dreds of tribes there were, all a part of larger "nations." The "Five 
Nations" which at this time were in northern New York were called 
the Iroquois of the "Long House," named for the long houses which 
they used to build ; then scattered along the Appalachians to the south 
were the Delawares, the Cherokees, the Chickasaws, the Creeks, and 
innumerable others; the Potawatomi, the Powhatans, the Comanches, 
the Sioux, the Apaches, the Wyandottes, and — well, study the map of 
Fig. 6. It tells you something of where they lived. 

And this tells you more about them : 

"In South Carolina dwelt the Yamasi tribe of about three thousand 
warriors, their chief towns only sixty or eighty miles distant from the 
Spanish town of St. Augustine. On the west, about the same distance 
northeast of New Orleans, in M^hat is now Alabama and Georgia, lay 
the Creek nation. There French garrisons held Mobile and Fort 
Alabama. The Creeks at this time numbered over four thousand war- 
riors. The lands of the Choctaws, a tribe of even larger fighting 
strength, began two hundred miles north of New Orleans and extended 
along the Mississippi. A hundred and sixty miles northeast of the 
Choctaw towns were the Chickasaws, the bravest and most successful 
warriors of all the tribes south of the Iroquois. The Cherokees, in 
part seated within the Carolinas, on the upper courses of the Savannah 
River, mustered over six thousand men at arms. East of them were 
the Catawba towns. North of them Avere the Shawanoes and Dela- 
wares, in easy communication with the tribes of Canada. Still farther 
north, along the Mohawk and other rivers joining with the Hudson 
and Lake Ontario, stood the "long houses" of the fiercest and most 
warlike of all the savages, the Iroquois or Six Nations. 

"The Indians along the English borders outnumbered the colonists 
perhaps ten to one. If the Spanish and the French had succeeded in 
the conspiracy to unite on their side all the tribes, a red billow of 
tomahawk wielders would have engulfed and extinguished the English 
settlements. The French, it is true, made allies of the Shawanoes, 
the Delawares, the Choctaws, and a strong faction of the Creeks; and 



28 



WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 



they finally won over the Cherokees after courting- them for more 
than twenty years. But the Creeks in part, the powerful Chickasaws, 
and the Iroquois Confederacy, or Six Nations, remained loyal to the 
English. In both North and South it was the influence of the traders 
that kept these red tribes on the English side. "^ 




Where the Principal Indian Tribes Were, 1700-1750. 
Fig. U 

In 1607 when the first English colonists landed on the shores of 
America, the Indians owned and inhabited the land of the whole con- 
tinent. From coast to coast they roamed, a wild, wandering people, 
living largely by hunting and fishing. Would you like to learn some- 
thing of them — how the}^ lived and how they regarded the white man 
when he came to live on their land ? 

We are going to read some little stories which were told by people 
who lived for long periods among the Indians. These will tell you a 
good deal about them and what they thought of the white people. 

In reading them we must remember that when the English settled 
at Jamestown, Virginia (1607), and at Plymouth, Massachusetts 
(1620), and Boston (1630), the Indians — most of them — were very 
friendly. They were reallj^ glad to see our ancestors. They had furs 
to trade in return for beads, looking-glasses, and other curious orna- 
ments which the English had with them. And there are many in- 
stances in which the white men dealt fairly and kindly with the 
Indians. They frequently bought large pieces of land from the natives 
instead of just taking them and driving the Indians out. But the 
Indians needed great amounts of land for they depended on hunting 
and fishing for their living. They did not farm much, as our people 
always have and as the people of Europe and Asia have. 



•Skinner. Constance Lindsay: "Pioneers of the Old Southwest." pages 56-58. 



THE RED man's CONTINENT 29 

At the white men came in, settled on the land and built permanent 
homes, the Indians gradually learned to fear them, for they were 
steadily driven back westward away from the coast, over the Appa- 
lachians and out of the middle western valleys. The first story tells 
of the way some of these middle western tribes lived and what they 
heard from other tribesmen about the pale-faces. 



Indian Days of the Long Ago^ 

The camp of Lone Pine, chief of the Salish, or Flatheads, was on 
the banks of the Red Willow River, a beautiful stream flowing 
through the forests of the Bitterroot Mountains, in what we now call 
western Montana. Its cold, translucent waters come from the springs 
and snows far up among the mountain crags. 

Beautiful lodges or tepees made from the dressed skins of buffalo 
and elk were scattered everywhere among the pines. 

The village was like the camps of hundreds of other Indian chiefs 
or head men, which stood beside the forest stream, by the quiet brook 
of the open plain, by the lake in the mountains, or on -the grassy bank 
of the prairie lake. 

A camp site was never adopted by chance, but was chosen for a 
definite purpose. In some cases the object was fishing; in others to 
hunt the buffalo, or elk and deer; or to dig roots and gather berries 
and other wild fruits. 

The hour is that of a new day, just before the sun lifts from the 
forested peaks to the eastward. Here and there low voices of mothers 
speak to children ; a woman calls to another to be awake, and not 
to hold too long upon the sleep. Now the smoke curls upward from 
the lodge-tops, and from fires built in the open just outside. To the 
nostrils comes the fragrant odor of burning pine. Soon the savory 
smell of roasting meat will tell that the women are preparing the 
morning meal. 

There is a hushed feeling of excitement and anticipation. Only 
yesterday rumor came to the chief of two strange wanderers who on 
this day would reach the camp. In color they were said to be like 
the Salish, but their words were different. They told of strange peo- 
ple, of strange lands; they sang unknown and curious songs. Tliey 
talked with the spirit people and claimed much knowledge of the 
spirit world. But most wonderful of all, they said they could see 
into the future, and they made prophecy of disaster to all the tribes. 
Long into the night just past had Lone Pine and his head men sat 
about the council fire and discussed the strange rumor. 



'Quoted with permission from Curtis, Edward S. : "Indian Days of Long: 
Ag-o," pages 71-9. Copyrighted by World Book Co.. Yonkers. 1915. 



30 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

With the waking of the camp, Lone Pine, dressed in his trappings 
of a chief at ceremonial times, came from his lodge. He mounted 
his horse, and rode slowly about the camp, acting as his own herald. 

In a loud voice he cried: ''Hear ye\ Hear ye! Chiefs! Men! 
Women ! Boys ! Awaken ! Do not hold on to your sleep like lazy 
ones, but listen to my voice ! This is a great day for us 1 The two 
strange men with wonderful stories will reach our camp before the 
sun sinks. It is said that one of these men was born by the Big 
Water from where the West Wind comes. Not alone does he tell us 
of the land of the West Wind, where the Sun sleeps, but he has 
traveled to the land of the South Wind, which brings summer. He 
has seen curious people, in color like ourselves, but living in strange 
ways. 

' ' The other wanderer comes from the Big Water of the East Wind, 
where the Sun rises. He has wandered for many winters and has 
seen strange people and their ways. Of all these people they will 
tell us. 

"Chiefs, my words are heavy with meaning to our nation. The 
stories these wanderers tell are of many brown people like ourselves. 
But, besides, they tell of a people with skins of snow; a people as 
countless as the sands, who will take our land, steal our daughters, 
and try to teach us new ways. It is a story of war, misery, and 
sickness to our nation! 

"Women, make clean the camp and our lodges! Prepare much 
food, that our guests and our men may have a great feast! Young 
men and warriors, dress as is fitting for greeting the visitors to our 
camp I Your chief has spoken ! I have said it ! " 

Kukusim, the son of Lone Pine, had sat in the shadows at the 
council fires on the previous night and had listened wide-eyed to the 
words of his father and the head men. He was early awake, attending 
to the words of the chief as he rode about the camp on his proud war- 
horse. Many of his father's words were of matters too deep for his 
understanding, but he realized that this was a great event in the life 
of his people, and he wished that he, like his elder brother, were man 
grown, that he might be counted among the warriors, among the men 
who could protect the people however great the danger. He often 
dreamed of performing som^ great feat in battle and having his name 
changed from Kukusim, the Star, to something more warlike, such as 
Kills First, or Hunts The Enemy. 

Soon his mother was saying : ' ' My sou, come with Sister, and eat 
food. Eat plenty, that you may grow up sti'ong. Remember your 
grandfather's teachings, and do not make a loud noise. If you do, 
no one will take vou for children of a chief." 



THE RED man's CONTINENT 31 

The mother was of the Pierced Nose tribe/ who lived far to the 
southwest. She was very proud of her children. One, a boy of fifteen 
winters, was already a man allowed to go on hunting and war expe- 
ditions with his father. Kukusim, who was less than ten, still clung 
to his mother and the interests of her life. The sister. Blue Bird, 
had come into the world two winters later, and was still his com- 
panion. Baby was a boy, and had been with them but two summers, 
and young as Blue Bird was, she called herself "little mother" to 
the baby. 

At breakfast time Baby was still asleep, so Blue Bird was care- 
free. Kukusim and she sat close together in the family circle about 
the food, which was in two or three horn and wooden dishes placed 
upon the ground. The mother saw that they had plenty of the best 
of the food. Besides, she made a point of giving them some of the 
roast elk ribs, on which there was little meat, admonishing them : 
"Gnaw the meat from these bones, children. It will make your teeth 
strong and white." 

While Kukusim was picking the meat from his rib bone, his 
favorite dog crept up, and coaxed for it. The boy watched his mother, 
and when she was looking in another direction, he gave his bone to the 
dog. Just at that moment his mother looked around, and seeing him- 
self detected, Kukusim exclaimed, "Mother, my dog was very 
hungry ! ' ' 

Like a true Indian mother, she laughed as she scolded him, and 
as punishment she gave him no more meat for his breakfast. But 
Blue Bird, sorry for Brother, shared her food with him. 

As soon as the two children had finished their morning meal, 
Kukusim said: "Mother, I shall find my friends Scarf ace. Yellow 
Hawk, and Rabbit, and will take our bows and arrows to the forest 
to hunt squirrels and rabbits." 

Before he left the lodge, Sister whispered to him: "I shall get 
my friends and we will make a play camp just at the edge of the 
woods. When you are coming home, stop there and show us what 
you have killed, and we will play at cooking it for our husbands. ' ' 

Before breakfast Kukusim had gone with his father to bathe in 
the river. This was a daily practice, not only to keep their bodies 
clean, but to harden them so that they could endure cold and changing 
weather without discomfort or illness. It was summer time, but owing 
to the snows in the mountains and the cold nights, the water was icy 
cold. This, however, did not discourage the Indian chief, who with 
his son plunged in and swam about for a time. They stepped out on 



'This tribe is known as tlie Nez Perces, which is French for "Pierced 
Noses." Many of the men in this tribe wore a slender sheU, shaped like a 
dog's tooth, in a hole cut through the partition between the nostrils. Therefore 
other tribes called them the Pierced Noses. 



32 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPOETATION 

the bank, and as the day was warm, sat in the sun and dried them- 
selves. Had it been a winter day, they would have wrapped a blanket 
or robe about them. Many Indian tribes bathed in this way every 
day, summer and winter. In some places they had to cut holes in the 
thick ice, but still the daily bath was not omitted. In that way the 
boys grew up with sturdy bodies, able to withstand all sorts of 
hardship. 

Later in the day the camp was thrown into great excitement. 
Rumors spread thick and fast — the two strangers were coming. Sev- 
eral braves were sent out to bring them into the village. Soon 
a council was called and the two strange Indians were asked to tell 
their story. 

"As one of them rose, it could be plainly seen that he was a 
stranger in the land. His face bore a keener expression. His clothing 
was different, and instead of a full head of hair with a long braid 
down each side, he wore but a strip of bristling hair along the crown 
of his head. His talk was all by signs. 

' ' I am Four Moons. The story of my footsteps on many trails would 
fill the nights of a long winter. My mother's wigwam was beside the 
great lakes where streams flow eastward into the Big Water, whence 
the morning sun rises. My people were the Wendat.^ Alas ! the power- 
ful tribes of the Wendat are broken and scattered. 

"Sixty winters ago, in my boyhood days, there were eighteen great 
villages of my people. Eight of them were protected by thick, high 
palisades. The people were like flies in numbers. Twenty thousand, 
my father has told me, dwelt in the towns of the Wendat. 

"From the earliest time of which the old men could tell, we had 
been at war with Those of the Long Lodge. Fierce and cruel were the 
cunning warriors of Those of the Long Lodge,- yet not so numerous 
as ours. 

" I see that you are surprised that the few could overcome the many. 
But think not that the Wendat were lacking in strength of heart or 
knowledge of war. Our enemies had help that was not ours. 

"Even before I was born there came over the sea in great canoes 
people of the race about whom my friend has told you. But he has 
not told you of their wonderful weapons. My friends, when the white 
hunter would kill a deer, he points a stick at it. There is a flash of 
lightning, a roar of thunder, and the deer drops dead in his tracks!" 



'The Wendat were a federation of four tribes, nicknamed Hurons by the 
French. Later they became known as the Wyandot, a corruption of their own 
name. The Hurons, when first observed by the French explorer Champlain in 
1615, were living in what is now Ontario, south and east of Georgian Bay. 

"This was the native name of the Iroquois, or Five Nations, a federation of 
the following tribes: Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, and Seneca. The 
territory they occupied is now northern New York. The Iroquois tribes be- 
longed to the same family as the Hurons, the two groups speaking the same 
language. »- »- & 



THE RED man's CONTINENT 33 

A murmur of awe and wonder, almost of disbelief, swept through 
the assembly. 

"Yes, my friends, it is true. As the winters passed, the white men 
in their town beside the Great Water became more and more numer- 
ous. To our enemies, who were nearer to them than we, they traded 
of these magic weapons for furs. The shooter of the white man will 
kill ten times as far as an arrow, and when Those of the Long Lodge 
had many of the new shooters, we could do nothing. 

"It is now fifty-two years^ since they began a war to sweep us from 
the earth. With their thunder weapons they could not fail. I will 
not tell you now of the fierce battles, the bloody slaughters, of women 
wailing for slain husbands and sons, of starving children wandering 
through the woods. 

"A small party fled westward, among them my father, the chief 
Anabotaha, and myself. I was a young man just learning war. 

"After several yeai's of wandering hither and thither, we came 
into the country of the Pota-watoni- and built a village with a palisade 
on the shore of a great lake so wide that the eye cannot reach across it. 

' ' Still we were not out of reach of Those of the Long Lodge, and a 
few years later we left this new home. My father, with some others, 
returned eastward beyond our former land, and later I heard a 
report that he was killed by our enemies. For my part, being now a 
man, I chose to go with those who continued westward. 

"Among the Illinois'^ we found welcome. But our rest here was 
brief, for the Illinois too were beset by a powerful enemy, the 
Dakota.^ And thus, my friends, we were driven from place to place. 
With a few companions I became separated from the main party, and 
one by one they have died. Alone, I have wandered from tribe to 
tribe, always westward. As my friend has told you, it was among the 
Apsaroke, whom you know, that he found me. 

"You know now, my friends, whence I came. At another time I 
will tell you of the habits of the people of the east. Their ways are 
strange to you. I will tell you, too, of the white men, for I have seen 
them, and listened to the songs of their medicine-men, the black-robes,' 
as we of the east call them. I will show you how on every seventh 
day they hold a dance, sing their songs, and speak to one whom they 
believe to dwell in the sky. But now the night is done. For this time 
it is enough."® 



lit was in 1648 that the Iroquois be§-an the final campaign against the 
Huron tribes. In two or three years nearly all the Hurons had been either 
captured and adopted or killed in battle or by torture.' The remnants were 
scattered in every direction. 

-'In the region of Green Bay, Wisconsin. 

"The Illinois lived on the river of that name, as well as on the Mississippi. 

■■The Dakota, or Sioux, were living- at this early period on the upper course 
of the Mississippi above Illinois. They were very numerous and warlike. 

■'■The Catholic priests were very commonly called "black-robes." 

eCurtis, Edward S. : "Indian Days of Long- Ago," pages 49-54. 



34 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

1. How were the Indian "towns" different from our little vil- 
lages today ? 

2. What did the Indians do mostly for their living? What kinds 
of things do we do? 

3. What kinds of houses did they live in? Can you tell why they 
made this kind of house? 

4. What do the Indian customs tell you of the kind of people 
they were? 

5. What did the Indian think of the coming of the white man to 
his continent? 

6. Write a little story in your note-book that would give to other 
children who didn't know about the Indians a picture of how they 
lived, the kinds of houses they had, and the kinds of work they did. 



The Indian Fight on the Island 

Will and Nancy Graham sat on the two arms of old John Graham's 
chair and demanded the evening storj^ from their grandfather. The 
day's work on the Graham farm near Columbus was done, the evening 
meal was over, and the family was sitting around the fireplace talk- 
ing and reading. It was an attractive farm home — the result of the 
toil of three generations of Grahams. The first family homestead 
had been built on the same spot one hundred and thirty years before 
by the old pioneer, Alexander Graham. In 1788 he had caught the 
westward fever and had moved his whole family from the security of 
eastern Massachusetts to the danger of frontier life on the Ohio River. 

"Grandpa, tell us some of those stories about the Indians that you 
were reading in "The Last of the Mohicans." 

"You mean from that Cooper book, about Hawkeye the Scout, and 
Chingachgook, and Uncas the Mohican." 

"Yes, and about Magna, the Mingo Indian, who tried to get the 
white people killed, and how the Iroquois attacked them in the woods." 

"Bring the book from the bookcase, Will, so if I forget it I can 
look in as I tell it to you." 

The children settled down in thrilled anticipation, and Grand- 
father Graham, with the book^ before him, partly read and partly 
made up from it this story of Indian adventure: 



One afternoon in the days of long ago, in the wild woods of 
northern New York State, two men were making camp on the banks 
of a small stream. They were a queer pair ; one had the red skin and 



Mames Fenimore Cooper: "The Last of the Mohicans. 



AN INDIAN FIGHT 35 

the wild appearance of the Indian natives of the woods. The other 
was a grizzled, sunburned white man long accustomed to the trials of 
the wilderness. He was an Englishman by descent, known far and 
wide as "Hawkeye the Woodsman." Many were the parties of trav- 
ellers of colonists that depended on him to take them safely through 
the dangerous trails and over the portages of the woods of the Indians 
of the Long House. That was what they caUed the houses of the 
"Five Nations" of Indians, the Iroquois, that lived along the Mohawk 
Valley in northern New York. They were the Cayugas, the Senecas, 
the Mohawks, the Oneidas, and the Onondagas. ■ 

The Indian was sitting, straight and lithe, on the end of a mossy 
log, and was talking earnestly to his companion. He would have been 
a fearful sight to you, for he was painted ready for the death fight. 
His body, nearly naked, looked like a terrible emblem of warfare 
drawn in colors of white and black. His head had been closely shaved 
so that only the customary scalping tuft was left standing on end. 
He wore one long eagle's plume draped across his head and over one 
shoulder, — but no other ornaments. A tomahawk and scalping knife 
were in his girdle, while one of the short rifles that the whites were 
giving their savage helpers lay carelessly across his bare and sinewy 
knee. Now let me read you a little of the story. It tells you how the 
Indian felt about having the white man come and drive him off his 
lands. There's a good story here, too, of the way young Indians 
could shoot the bow and arrow : 

The frame of the white man was like that of one who had known 
hardships and exertion from his earliest youth. His person, though 
muscular, was rather slender; but every nerve and muscle appeared 
strung by exposure and toil. He wore a hunting-shirt of forest-green, 
fringed with faded yellow, and a summer cap of skins which had 
been shorn of their fur. He also bore a knife in a girdle of wampum 
(beads of shell), like that which confined the scanty garments of the 
Indian, but no tomahawk. His moccasins were ornamented after the 
gay fashion of the natives, while the only part of his under-dress 
which appeared below the hunting-frock, was a pair of buckskin leggins 
that laced at the sides, and which were gartered above the knee with 
the sinews of a deer. A pouch and horn completed his belongings, 
though a rifle of great length leaned against a neighboring sapling. 
The eye of the hunter, or scout, whichever he might be, was small, 
quick, keen, and restless, roving while he spoke, on every side of him, 
as if in quest of game, or distrusting the sudden approach of some 
lurking enemy. Notwithstanding these symj^toms of habitual suspi- 
cion, his countenance was not only Avithout guile, but, at the moment 
at which he is introduced, it was discharged with an expression of 
sturdy honesty. 



36 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

'Even your traditions make the case in my favor, Chingach- 
gook, ' he said, speaking in the tongue which was known to all the 
natives who formerly inhabited the country between the Hudson and 
the Potomac. 'Your fathers came from the setting sun,^ crossed the 
big river,- fought the people of my country, and took the land; and 
mine came from the red sky of the morning, over the Salt lake,^ and 
did their work much after the fashion that had been set them by yours ; 
then let God judge the matter between us, and friends spare their 
words. ' 

'My fathers fought with the naked red man!' returned the 
Indian, sternly, in the same language. 'Is there no difference, Hawk- 
eye, between the stone-headed arrow of the warrior, and the leaden 
bullet with which you kill ? ' 

'There is reason in an Indian, though Nature has made him 
with red skin,' said the white man. 'I am no scholar, and I care not 
who knows it; but judging from what I have seen, at deer-chases and 
squirrel-hunts, I should think a rifle in the hands of their grand- 
fathers was not so dangerous as a hickory bow and a good flint-head 
might be, if drawn with Indian judgment, and sent by an Indian eye. 
But every story has its two sides; so I ask you, Chingachgook, what 
passed, according to the traditions of the red men, when our fathers 
first met?' 

A silence of a minute succeeded, during which the Indian sat 
mute ; then he commenced his brief tale, with a solemnity that served 
to heighten its appearance of truth. 

'Listen, Hawkeye, and your ear shall drink no lie. 'Tis what my 
fathers have said, and what the Mohicans^ have done. My tribe is the 
grandfather of nations, but I am an unmixed man. The blood of chiefs 
is in my veins, where it must stay forever. The Dutch landed, and 
gave my people the fire-water ;5 they drank until the heavens and 
earth seemed to meet, and they foolishly thought they had found the 
Great Spirit.^ Then they parted with their land. Foot by foot, they 
were driven back from the shores, until I, that am a chief and a saga- 
more,^ have never seen the sun shine but through the trees, and have 
never visited the graves of my fathers.' 

'Graves bring solemn feelings over the mind,' returned the scout, 
a good deal touched at the calm suffering of his companion ; ' and they 
often aid a man in his good intentions; though, for myself, I expect 
to leave my bones unburied, to bleach in the woods, or to be torn 



M. e., from the West. 

"The Mississippi. 

•■'The Atlantic Ocean. 

*Pron. mo-he'-kanz. 

^Whiskey. 

«The Indian's name for God. 

'Head or king of a tribe of Indians. 



AN INDIAN FIGHT 37 

asunder by the wolves. But where are to be found those of your race 
who came to their kin in the Delaware country so many summers 
since ? ' 

'Where are the blossoms of those summers — fallen one by one; 
so all of my family departed, each in his turn, to the land of spirits. 
I am on the hill-top, and must go down into the valley; and, when 
Uncas folloAvs in my footsteps, there will no longer be any of the blood 
of the sagamores, for my boy is the last of the Mohicans.' 

' Uncas is here ! ' said another voice, in soft, gutteral tones, near 
Chingachgook's elbow; 'who speaks to Uncas?' 

The w^hite man loosened his knife in his leathern sheaf, and 
made an involuntary movement of the hand toward his rifle at this 
sudden interruption ; but the Indian sat composed, and without turning 
his head at the unexpected sounds. 

At the next instant a youthful warrior passed between them, 
with a noiseless step, and seated himself on the bank of the rapid 
stream. No exclamation of surprise escaped the father, nor was any 
question, or reply given, for several minutes. At length Chingach- 
gook turned his eyes slowly toward his son and demanded : 

'Do the Maquas dare to leave the print of their moccasins in 
these woods!' 

'I have been on their trail,' replied the young Indian, 'and know 
that they number as many as the fingers of my two hands ; but they 
lie hid like cowards.' 

'The thieves are outlying for scalps and plunder,' said the white 
man, whom we shall call Hawkeye, after the manner of his com- 
panions. 'That busy Frenchman, Montcalm, will send his spies into 
our very camp, but he will know what road to travel.' 

' 'Tis enough!' returned the father, glancing his eye toward the 
setting sun ; ' they shall be driven like deer from their bushes. Hawk- 
eye, let us eat tonight, and show the Maquas that we are men to- 
morrow. ' 

'I am as ready to do the one as the other; but to fight the 
Iroquois 'tis necessary to find the skulkers ; and to eat, 'tis necessary to 
the game — talk of the devil and he will come; there is a pair of the 
biggest antlers I have seen this season moving the bushes below the 
hill! Now, Uncas, I will bet my charger three times full of powder, 
against a foot of wampum, that I take him atwixt the eyes, and nearer 
to the right than to the left.' 

'It cannot be!' said the young Indian, springing to his feet; 
'all but the tips of his horns are hid!' 

Adjusting his rifle, Hawkej^e was about to make an exhibition 
of that skill on which he so much valued himself, when the warrior 
struck up the piece with his hand, saying : 



38 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

'Hawkeye, will you fight the Maquas?' 

'These Indians know the nature of the woods, as it might be by 
instinct!' returned the scout, dropping his rifle. 'I must leave the 
buck to your arrow, Uncas, or we may kill a deer for the thieves, 
the Iroquois, to eat.'^ 

Uncas thrcAv himself on the ground and approached the animal 
with wary movements. When within a few yards of the cover, he 
fitted an arrow to his bow with the utmost care. In another moment 
the twang of the cord was heard, and the wounded buck plunged 
from the cover to the very feet of his hidden enemy. Avoiding the 
horns of the infuriated animal, Uncas darted to his side, and passed 
his knife across the throat, when, bounding to the edge of the river, 
it fell, dyeing the waters with its blood. 

* 'Twas done with Indian skill,' said the scout. 'By the Lord, 
here is a drove of them I If they come within range of a bullet I will 
drop one, though the whole Six Nations should be lurking within 
sound ! What do you hear, Chingachgook, for to my ears the woods 
are dumb?' 

'There is but one deer, and he is dead,' said the Indian, bending 
his body till his ear nearly touched the earth. 'I hear the sounds of 
feet. The horses of white men are coming ! Hawkeye, they are your 
brothers; speak to them.' 

'That will I,' returned the hunter, 'but I see nothing, nor do I 
hear the sounds of man or beast. Ha ! there goes something like the 
crackling of a dry stick — now I hear the bushes move — yes, yes, there 
is a trampling that I mistook for the falls — and — but here they come 
themselves; God keep them from the Iroquois!' " 

Grandfather put the book down. 

"But the Indian fight story, Grandpa," insisted Will. 

"Well, the stoiw goes on to tell how, after Uncas killed the deer, 
Hawkeye and Uncas and Chingachgook joined a party of white men 
who were journeying through the woods up to old Fort William Henry 
from Fort Edward. There was Major Heyward and Duncan and 
the two daughters of old General Munro, Alice and Cora, and a funny 
old singing master by the name of David Gamut. They were being 
guided by a bad Mingo Indian, Magna. Hawkeye knew Magna was 
tricky and that he was getting the party lost in the wilderness. He 
was guiding them to a place where they could be ambushed by the 
unfriendly Indians. So Major Heyward and his party trusted them- 
selves to the fine old scout and his Indian friends. That night in camp 
the Indian attack came. Let me read it to you the way Cooper 
tells it: 



•Meanins Ihal the report of the rifle would draw the Iroquois to the spot. 



AN INDIAN FIGHT 39 

"All but Hawkey e and the two Mohicans finally fell sound asleep, 
m spite of the danger. But the watchfulness of these vigilant pro- 
tectors neither tired nor slumbered. It was continued until the moon 
had set, and a pale streak above the tree-tops, at the bend of the river 
a little below, announced the approach of day. Then, for the first 
time, Hawkeye was seen to stir. He crawled along the rock, and shook 
Duncan from his heavy slumbers. 

'Now is the time to journey,' he whispered; 'awake the ladies and 
he ready to get into the canoe when I bring it to the landing-place.' 

Duncan immediately lifted the shawl from the sleeping girls. The 
motion caused Cora to raise her hand as if to repulse him, while Alice 
dreamed aloud in her soft, gentle voice: 'No, no, dear father, we were 
not deserted ; Duncan was with us ! ' 

'Yes, ' whispered the youth: 'Duncan is here. Cora! Alice! awake! 
The hour has come to move ! ' 

A loud shriek from the younger of the sisters, and the form of 
the other standing upright before him in bewildered horror, was the 
unexpected answer he received. While the words were still on the 
lips of Heyward, there had arisen such a tumult of yells and cries 
as served to drive the swift currents of his own blood back from its 
bounding course into the fountain of his heart. The cries came from 
no particular direction, though it was evident they filled the woods, 
and, as the appalled listeners easily imagined, the caverns of the falls, 
the rocks, the bed of the river, and the upper air. David stood up 
in the moonlight. 

The bright flashes and the quick reports of a dozen rifles from the 
opposite bank of the stream, followed this incautious exposure of his 
person, and left the unfortunate singing-master senseless on that rock 
where he had been so long slumbering. The Mohicans boldly sent 
back the intimidating yell of their enemies, who raised a shout of 
savage triumph at the fall of Gamut. The flash of rifles was then 
quick and close between them, but either party was too well skilled 
to leave even a limb exposed to the hostile aim. Duncan listened with 
intense anxiety for the strokes of the paddle, believing that flight 
was now their only refuge. The river glanced by with its usual speed, 
but the canoe was nowhere to be seen on its dark waters. He had 
just fancied they were cruelly deserted by the scout, as a stream of 
flame issued from the rock beneath him, and a shriek of agony an- 
nounced that the messenger of death, sent from the fatal weapon of 
Hawkeye, had found a victim. At this slight repulse the assailants 
instantly withdrew, and gradually the place became as still as before 
the sudden tumult. 



40 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

Duncan seized the favorable moment to spring to the body of 
Gramut, which he bore within the shelter of the narrow chasm that 
protected the sisters. In another minute the whole party was safe. 

* The poor fellow has saved his scalp, ' said Hawkeye, coolly, passing 
his hand over the head of David; 'but he is a proof that a man may 
be born with too long a tongue. 'Twas downright madness to show 
six feet of flesh and blood, on a naked rock, to the raging savages.' 

'Is he not dead?' demanded Cora. 'Can we do anything to help 
him?' 

'No, no! the life is in his heart yet, and after he has slept awhile 
he will come to himself,' returned Hawkeye. 'Carry him in, Uncas, 
and lay him on the sassafras. The longer his nap the better for him, 
as I doubt whether he can find a proper cover for such a shape on 
these rocks ; and singing won 't do any good with the Iroquois. ' 

'You believe, then, the attack will be renewed?' asked Heyward. 

'Do I expect a hungry wolf will satisfy his craving with a mouth- 
ful? They have lost a man, and 'tis their fashion, when they meet a 
loss, and fail in the surprise, to fall back ; but we shall have them on 
again. Our main hope will be to keep the rock until Munro can send 
a party to our help ! ' 

'You hear our probable fortunes, Cora,' said Duncan, 'and you 
know we have everything to hope from the anxiety and experience 
of your father. Come, then, with Alice, into this cavern, where you 
will be safe from the murderous rifles of our enemies, and where you 
may bestow a care on our unfortunate comrade.' 

The sisters followed him into the outer cave, where David was 
beginning, by his sighs, to give symptoms of returning consciousness; 
and then commending the wounded man to their attention, he joined 
the scout and his companions, who still lay within the protection of 
the chasm between the two caves. 

'I tell you, Uncas,' said the former, as Heyward joined them, 'you 
are wasteful of j^our powder, and the kick of the rifle disconcerts your 
aim. Little powder, light lead, and a long arm seldom fail of bring- 
ing the death-screech from a Mingo ! At least, such has been my 
experience with the creatures. Come, friends, let us to our covers, for 
no man can tell when or where a Maqua^ will strike his blow.' 

The Indians silently went to their places, which were fissures in 
the rocks, whence they could command the approaches to the foot of 
the falls. In the center of the little island, a few short and stunted 
pines had found root, forming a thicket, into which Hawkeye darted 
with the swiftness of a deer, followed by the active Duncan. Here 



nt win be observed that Hawkeye applies different names to his enemies. 
Mingo and Ma(jua are terms of contempt, and Iroquois is a name given by the 
French. The Indians rarely use the same name when different tribes speak of 
each other. Minf?o was the Delaware term for the Five Nations- Maqua was 
the Dutch. — .^uthor's note. 



AN INDIAN FIGHT 41 

thej^ secured themselves among the shrubs and fragments of stone that 
were scattered about the place. Above them was a bare, rounded rock, 
on each side of which the water played its gambols, and plunged into 
the abysses beneath. 

A long and anxious watch succeeded, but without any further evi- 
dences of a renewed attack; and Duncan began to hope that their 
enemies had been effectually repulsed. When he ventured to utter 
this impression to his companion, it was met by Hawkeye with an 
incredulous shake of the head. 

'You do not know the nature of a Maqua, if you think he is so 
easily beaten back without a scalp, ' he answered. ' Hist ! look into the 
water above, just where it breaks over the rocks. The risky devils 
have swum down upon the very pitch, and have hit the very head of 
the island. Hist ! man, keep close ! or the hair will be off your crown 
in the turning of a knife ! ' 

Heyward lifted his head from the cover, and beheld a prodigy of 
rashness and skill. The river had worn away the edge of the soft rock 
in such a manner as to render its first pitch less perpendicular than is 
usual at waterfalls. A party of their foes had ventured into the cur- 
rent, and swum down upon this point, knowing the ready access it 
could give, if successful, to their intended victims. As Hawkeye 
stopped speaking, four heads could be seen peering above the few logs 
of drift-wood that had lodged on these naked rocks. 

He placed a finger in his mouth, and drew a long, shrill whistle, 
which was answered from the rocks, that were guarded by the Mo- 
hicans. Duncan caught glimpses of the heads above the scattered drift- 
wood, as this signal rose on the air, but they disappeared again as 
suddenly as they had glanced upon his sight. A low, rustling sound 
next drew his attention behind him, and, turning his head, he beheld 
Uncas within a few feet, creeping to his side. Hawkeye spoke to him 
in Delaware, when the young chief took his position with singular cau- 
tion and undisturbed coolness. 

At that moment the woods were filled with another burst of cries ; 
and, at the signal, four savages sprang from the cover of the drift- 
wood. Heyward felt a burning desire to rush forward to meet them, 
so intense was the delirious anxiety of the moment; but he was 
restrained by the deliberate examples of the scout and Uncas. When 
their foes, who leaped over the black rocks that divided them, with 
long bounds, uttering the wildest yells, were within a few rods, the rifle 
of Hawkeye slowly rose from among the shrubs, and poured out its 
fatal contents. The foremost Indian bounded like a stricken deer and 
fell headlong among the clefts of the island. 



42 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

'Now, I'licas!' cried the scout, drawing his long knife, while his 
quick e,ve began to flash with ardor, 'take the last of the screeching 
imps ; of the other two Ave are sartain ! ' 

He was obeyed ; and but two enemies remained to be overcome. 
Heyward had given one of his pistols to Hawkeye, and together they 
rushed down a little declivity toward their foes ; they discharged their 
weapons at the same instant, and equally without success. 

'I know'd it. and I said it!' muttered the scout, whirling the de- 
spised little implements over the falls with bitter disdain. 'Come on, 
ye bloody-minded hounds ! ye meet a man without a cross ! '^ 

The words were barely uttered when he encountered a savage of 
gigantic stature and of the fiercest mien. At the same moment Duncan 
found himself engaged with the other in a similar contest of hand to 
hand. With ready skill, Hawkeye and his antagonist each grasped 
the uplifted arm of the other Avhich held the dangerous knife. For 
nearly a minute they stood looking one another in the eye, and grad- 
ually exerting the power of their muscles for the mastery. At length 
the toughened sinews of the white man prevailed over the less prac- 
ticed limbs of the native. The arm of the latter slowly gave way before 
the increasing force of the scout, who, suddenly wresting his armed 
hand from the grasp of his foe, drove his sharp weapon through his 
naked bosom to the heart. In the meantime Heyward had been pressed 
in a more deadly struggle. His slight sword was snapped in the first 
encounter. As he was destitute of any other means of defense, his 
safety now depended entirely on bodily strength and resolution. Hap- 
pily, he soon succeeded in disarming his adversary, whose knife fell on 
the rock at their feet ; and from this moment it became a fierce struggle 
who should cast the other over the dizzy height into a neighboring 
cavern of the falls. Each successive struggle brought them nearer to 
the verge, where Duncan perceived the final and conquering effort 
must be made. Each of the combatants threw all his energies into that 
effort, and the result was, that both tottered on the brink of the preci- 
pice. . Heyward felt the grasp of the other at his throat, and saw the 
grim smile the savage gave, under the revengeful hope that he hurried 
his enemy to a fate similar to his own, as he felt his body slowly yield- 
ing to a resistless power, and the young man experienced the passing 
agony of such a moment in all its dark horrors. At that instant of 
extreme danger a dark hand and a glancing knife appeared before 
him; the Indian released his hold as the blood flowed freely from 
around the severed tendons of his wrist; and, while Duncan was 
drawn backward by the saving arm of Uncas, his charmed eyes were 
still riveted on the fierce and disappointed countenance of his foe, who 
fell sullenly and disappointed down the precipice. 



M. e., having no Indian blood in his veins; of pure white stock or descent. 



AN INDIAN FIGHT 43 

' To cover ! to cover ! ' ci-ied Hawkeye, who just then had dispatched 
his enemy ; ' to cover, for your lives ! The work is but half ended ! '^ 

The young Mohican gave a shout of triumph, and, followed by 
Duncan, he glided up the slope they had descended to the combat, and 
sought the friendly shelter of the rocks and shrubs. 

To tlie Teacher: The pupils may want to do addi- 
tional reading- on the Indians. We suggest that you 
call their attention to such books as the following: 
The White Indian Boy. By E. N. Wilson, edited h\ 

Howard R. Drigss. World Book Co., Yonkers, 

N. Y., 1919. 
Indian Days of the Long Ago. Bv Edward S. Curtis. 

World Book Co., Yonkei-s, N." Y., 1915. 
American Histori/ Stories. By Mara L. Pratt, M. D. 

"Indian Troubles," Vol. I. pages 226-244; 

"George Washington in the French and Indian 

War," pages 249-269. Educational Publisihing 

Company, Boston, 1908. 
The Leatherstocking Series: The Deerslayer; The 

Pathfinder; The Last of the Mohicans. 
Hiawatha. H. W. Loiig fellow. This can always be 

found in collections of American poetry. 



iThis story is adapted from a section in James Fenimore Cooper's "The Last 
of the Mohicans." 



IV. HOW THE EARLY ENGLISH TRADERS 
PROBABLY SAVED THE ENGLISH COLONIES 

We must not forget that there was a time when white men lived 
with the Indians very peaceably. When the white men first came over 
and landed in Massachusetts the Indians made friends with them and 
traded with them. In the early 1700 's also, and as late as 1750, 
friendly relations existed. Very few white men went among the In- 
dians, but those who did went to sell them things in exchange for furs 
to bring back to the Atlantic Coast and to ship to Europe and England. 
They went to trade, not to take the land and settle on it, and so of 
course the Indians were glad to see them. You and I probably owe 
more of what we have today to those brave traders who went out into 
the wilderness and lived by themselves than to almost any other group 
of people. The histories of our country have given far too little atten- 
tion to them. The trader was really our very first pathfinder. The 
surveyors like George Washington, the rangers, the settlers — these 
people have all lived in our thoughts. AVhat they built — the little 
towns and villages along the great rivers we have remembered well 
because of the fine cities that grew out of them. But we must not 
forget that after all the trail was "blazed" and kindly relations with 
the savage Indians set up by a small number of solitary wanderers, 
the early English traders. 

The trader was the pioneer, America's first great man of commerce 
and business. ' ' His furs — for which he paid in guns, knives, ammuni- 
tion, vermilion paint, mirrors, and cloth — lined kings' mantles, and 
hatted the Lords of Trade as they strode to their council chamber in 
London to discuss his business and to pass those regulations which 
might have seriously hampered him but for his resourcefulness in cir- 
cumventing them ! ' '^ 

Now, some of these traders were noble and brave men; they were 
pioneers in every sense of the word. The early ones, men like James 
Adair and George Croghan and Lachlan McGillivray, the Scotch high- 
lander, were intelligent and well educated. They were all fearless and 
very resourceful ; that is, they could find ways to look out for them- 
selves, to get food and shelter in these lonely wildernesses. If they 



'Skinner, Constance Lindsay: "Pioneers of the Old Southwest," page 53. 
Yalfi T'niversity Press, New Haven, 1919. > 



THE ENGLISH TRADERS 45 

had not been stout-hearted, thej- would not have been in this business 
of trading with the Indians, and the historj^ of that time is full of 
their bold deeds. 

James Adair was one of the most picturesque of the whole group 
and was a great help to the colonists in the East. As early as 1735 he 
began following the long and dangerous trails from Charleston, South 
Carolina, up through the upper towns of the Cherokee and Chickasaw 
Indians. Look at your map. Fig. 6, page 28. The Cherokees and 
Chickasaws that he came to know so well had their principal towns 
where Tennessee now is. He went among them, sold them the trinkets 
and little luxuries that they cared so much for, — but never whiskey, 
as did the later traders. They took him into their friendship and 
confidence, and gradually adopted him into their tribes. He became 
an honored member of the Chickasaw nation, and married an Indian 
wife of whom he says in a book he wrote, called "The English Chick- 
asaw," that she is "as great a princess as ever lived among the 
ancient Peruvians or Mexicans." 

Here is a passage that shows something of the friendliness that the 
Indians felt for Adair. 

"A land of grass and green shade inset with bright w^aters, where 
deer and domestic cattle herded together along the banks; a circling 
group of houses, their white-clayed walls sparkling under the sun's 
rays, and, within and without, the movement of a 'friendly and saga- 
cious people,' who 'kindly treated and watchfully guarded' their white 
brother in peace and war, and who conversed daily with him in the 
Old Beloved Speech learned first of Nature. 'Like towers in cities 
beyond the common size of those of the Indians' rose the winter and 
summer houses and the huge trading house which the tribe had built 
for their best beloved friend in the town's center, because there he 
would be safest from attack. On the rafters hung the smoked and 
barbecued delicacies taken in the hunt and prepared for him by his 
red servants, who were also his comrades at home and on the dan- 
gerous trail. 'Beloved old women' kept an eye on his small sons, 
put to drowse on panther skins so that they might grow up brave war- 
riors. Nothing was there of artifice or pretense, only 'the needful 
things to make a reasonable life happy. ' ' '^ 

You see, everything was primitive, simple, and all were contented. 
Now such men as Adair going about among the Indians made them 
feel that the white man was their friend; and, but for two things, 
this peaceful state would very likely have continued. As we have 
said, the traders didn't want land; they wanted trade. But the set- 
tlers who came after them wanted land. These settlers brought their 
families and all their household furnishings, and they built cabins 



-Skinner, Constance Lindsay: op. cit., pages 72-73. 



46 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

and planted corn, and gave every sign of meaning to stay and keep 
the land they settled on. Slowly, as they came trailing over the moun- 
tains and down through the valleys in the years from 1760 to 1790, 
the native Indian grew uneasy ; on his horse from the brow of the high 
hill he watched the wagons and pack-horse caravans come encroach- 
ing on his territory. From the shelter of thick underbrush he peeped 
out and kept an eye on the unwelcome invaders. As he saw the pale- 
faces taking more and more of his property, the warlike feelings of 
the Indian grew, and the pale-face became more and more unwelcome. 

But it was not alone this question of settlement on his land that 
disturbed the Indian. He and the white settler could probably have 
arranged that in a friendly Avay had it not been for a second and very 
important factor. This factor was that there were two white nations, 
the French and the English, whose governments were both greedy for 
the wealth of the rich unclaimed continent of America ; and they hated 
each other. 

You see, the English were not the only people who had been com- 
ing to America in all those hundred and fifty years since 1600. The 
Spanish and the French had come, too. The people of each nationality 
had entered the new continent by a different route and settled quite 
a different region. But sooner or later they were sure to meet and 
clash. It could not be otherwise, for they all wanted the same things — 
land and riches. And these are the surest causes of war. Since the 
beginning of the history of mankind it has always been so. 

By 1750 the different peoples had gotten themselves located in 
America about as shown in the map of Fig. 5. The English were 
along the narrow Atlantic coastal plain from what is now Maine to 
Georgia; the French were along the St. Lawrence, mainly in what is 
now Canada ; and the Spanish were way down around the South where 
Florida and Louisiana are. 

Spain isn't very important in the story, for after her great fleet 
of ships — the Armada — had been wiped out by England in 1588, she 
hadn't done very much toward colonizing in America. 

But France and England— that's quite another matter. Their 
governments had hated each other for centuries. You mus't not confuse 
the governments with the people. The common people themselves had 
no hatred. But the governments, those who had the power and wealth 
to take land and levy taxes on the people, fitted out great expeditions 
to search for gold and build up trade in foreign lands. These ''gov- 
ernments," you must remember, were autocratic, not democratic like 
ours. They were made of kings and queens and princes. The people 
did not elect a president, as we do over here, nor did they elect legis- 
lators. The people could not vote as we do; everything was settled by 
a few lords who had all the power. And the kings and princes and 



THE ENGLISH TRADERS 47 

lords were horn into these lordly positions ! Tliey were not chosen, 
nor did they in any way earn these positions. They even had the con- 
ceit to say that they were kings and lords by "Divine right," meaning 
that God had ordained them to rule over the people. Of course we 
don't believe that in America, and we never did. Even our ancestors 
didn't believe in that way of being governed in the 1600 's and 1700 's, 
and they fought for their liberty because of it. 

The years of the 1700 's, remember, were the times of Louis XIV in 
France — he was the man who swelled out his chest and said, "I am 
the State" — and of the several Hanoverian King Georges in England. 
The,y were harsh, autocratic, conceited, and mainly men of poor char- 
acter, waging war with someone nearly all the time. With such gov- 
ernors as these, and both ;^rance and England wanting land and trade 
in foreign quarters, there were constant clashes. They had fought M^ar 
upon war with each other, killing hundreds of thousands, yes millions 
of people — for war has to be fought with people — human beings who 
had no say in the matter. Between 1337 and 1453 they were at war 
with each other nearly all the time, and people speak of this period of 
fighting nowadays as The Hundred Years War. And just before the 
time we have been talking about, they had fought three more wars — 
King William's War, 1689-97; Queen Anne's War, 1701-13; and King 
George's War, 1744-48. Of course no one of these wars had really 
settled anything either in Europe or in America, So you see that 
when the French began to go down into that part of North America 
toward which the English were moving, trouble was bound to come — 
and come it did. Study again the map in Fig. 5 to see just where 
the French and English were located, say in 1750. 

What do you think was the real reason for the English staying so 
long on the narrow strip along the eastern coast? How does your 
map tell you ? 

Now study carefully where the French were in the meantime. In 
what general region were they? At about what dates were they in 
this region? Trace the French forts in the correct order of their 
establishment. Write in your note-book the most important conclusion 
you can make about the location of these French forts. 

MAP EXERCISE 

1. Color a blank mimeographed map to show the position of the 
French, English, and Spanish in America in 1750. 

2. Locate on this map the principal French forts, with dates at 
which they were established. 

3. Show the portages. 



48 



WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 



Where would 3'ou expect the first clashes between the French and 
English to come? In the South, around the mouth of the Mississippi? 
In the North, around the St. Lawrence River? Can you tell from the 
map, Fig. 7, about where it would naturally come? Where do men 
travel the most easily? Would this have anything to do with their 
clashing ? 

Compare the map of the Indians, page 28, with the next map 
showing the French forts. Do you see how the French had nearly 
made a line around the English colonies? From north to south they 
had built almost a wall of forts, as shown by the ci-osses. The gov- 
ernors of the English colonies were getting very uneasy at repoi'ts 
from traders which told how the French explorers and missionaries 



English Traders of the Hudson Bay 
Company held this territory 




= French Carrie5\or ^ 

Portages over Watersheds 
+ French Forts 



Notice how the Frencl 



built their forts .sun-oiuidinc 
Where were the Indiivis? 

Fig. 7 



the Eno'lish cohinies. 



and French traders were gradually going among the Indians and 
settling outposts closer and closer into the coastal plain where they 
themselves were living. They wrote letters back to the English govern- 
ment and warned them that if many Frenchmen were sent to live in 
these outposts, they could easily conquer the Eiiglish colonists on the 
coast plain. 

They could have concjuered them, too, had it not been for one very 
important thing. The French did not form colonies. They did not 
send many people to live permanently in America. They wanted trade. 
They were after gold and furs and a new route to the famed treasure 
land of India ; they were not seeking homes in the wdlderness. 



THE ENGLISH TRADERS 49 

But with the English it was different. The reasons that had made 
them come to America were reasons that made them want to stay. So 
their great purpose was to colonize, to settle villages and towns and 
cities, to till the soil and ship their produce all over the world. They 
had long before given up the notion of finding great treasures of gold 
and jewels. They w^ere not trying to get rich quick, but to find a 
permanent home with a little land which they could farm and make 
their living from. 

France ^^M 
60,000 ^H 



1,250,000 ■HB^^^HHI^^H^^^IH^II^^IHIH 

Fig. 8 

Notice from the graph, Fig. 8, the difference in numbers of the 
French and English that were here in 1750. Is there any doubt in 
your mind as to Mdiich people would fight hardest and longest for the 
land west of the Appalachian Mountain ranges? History has shown 
clearly that it was the settler, the home-seeker, the man with a family, 
the daring, intelligent, and self-reliant frontiersman, w^ho did fight 
hardest. And of this type of pioneer, the English had a far greater 
number than the French, 

Study Fig. 5. Notice that as early as 1700 the English were 
settling up into the back country. . Now^ Figs. 5 and 7 show that when 
settlers came to this line they were near to French territory. Notice 
the chain of forts surrounding the territory held by the English. 
There was good reason to build such forts. Not only had the early 
English traders — men like James Adair — penetrated the Ohio Valley 
chiefly settled by Indians, but English colonial governors were awake 
to this new country and had sent expeditions to explore the region. 
George Washington, as a young man. surveyed for the English land- 
owner. Lord Fairfax, a large area of land in what is now West Virginia. 

When the cabins of the settlers began to appear in this country, 
France moved to action. As the English threatened to sweep into the 
Ohio valley, the French sent an expedition under Celoron de Bienville 
to nail tin plates on trees in the valley to indicate the territot-y that 
belonged to France. 

Then they cleverly stirred up the Indians to attack the English. 
This latter was not hard to do, for the Indians realized that the per- 
manent settlements and farms of the English were fast pushing them 
out of their hunting grounds. 



50 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

War was on in 1754, and it was a terrible war. The French and 
Indians were combined against the English. The French wanted all 
the trade, and the Indians were aronsed to deep resentment against 
the settlers. Manj'- campaigns were undertaken ; the details do not 
interest us here. The war dragged on for several years. Finally one 
English general captured the French forts around what is now Pitts- 
burgh, another secured control of what is now the region near Buffalo, 
and a third, the famous General Wolfe, captured Quebec. With the 
surrender of this city, the French gave in and America as far west 
as the Mississippi region was given over to the English. 

The real westward movement was possible now, for the English 
could cross the Appalachian barrier and settle the Ohio Valley. This 
was the great movement for the next fifty years. 



V. HOW THE WHITE MAN CAME TO 
THE RED MAN'S CONTINENT 

1. How Europeans Wanted to Get to India and 
China, 1300—1600 

To the Teacher : It is expected tbat in preceding 
school years pupils wlII have read stories which tell 
of the European background of exploration and 
Ameiiean colonization. Here is an ojiportunity for 
several class exercises to be devoted to supplementary 
reading and individual reports to the class. Detailed 
references are given for seven topics, in the exi^ecta- 
tion that all cooperating schools will have some of 
these books from which readings can be made. 

To this wild continent of the red men the first white men came 
about 1500, looking for a way to get to India and China. , You have 
all read stories of how people in Europe were dazzled by the reports 
of wealth in the Far East, how Marco Polo went to China in the 
1200 's and lived for a long while, coming back to Italy to spread the 
news of an unbelievably rich empire in the eastern lands of Asia. You 
have learned in your earlier school work how ignorant people were 
in 1490 about the world they lived in. How they didn't even know 
that the earth was round, and believed that if one sailed off to the end 
of the ocean he would fall over the edge of the earth and never 
come back ! 

There are some v^vy interesting stories of those times in books that 
are no doubt in your school or town library. Look them up and be 
ready to tell at least one story to the class. 

1. Atkinson, A. M. : The European Beginnings of 
American History, pages 272-279 and 286-297. Ginn 
& Company, New York, 1912. 

2. Bai-stow, Charles L. (editor) : Explorers and 
Settlers, paaes 35-45. 

3. Beard," C. A., and Bagley. W. C. : Our Old 
World Background, pages 186-208. Macmillan Com- 
pany, New York, 1922. 

4. Bourne, H. E., and Benton, E. J. : Introducing 
American History, pages 132-145. D. C. Heath, New 
York, 1912. 

5. Elson, H. W., and MacMullan, C. E. : The Story 
of Our Country, pages 1-8. World Book Company, 
Yonkers, 1918.^ 

6. Hall, Jemiie: Our Ancestors vn Europe, pages 
346-349. Silver, Burdett & Co., Boston, 1916. 



52 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

7. Harding-, S. B., and SnodgTass, M. : The Story 
of Europe, pages 259-26S. Seott, Foresman & Com- 
pany, Chicago^ 1912. Descriljes how Europeans be- 
gan to explore other parts of the world. 

S. Hodgdon, Jeannette Rector: A First Course in 
American History, Volume I, pages 12-19. D. C. 
Heath & Co., Boston, 1908. A very simple account 
of Marco Polo's trip. 

9. Johnson, William H^iry: The World's Discov- 
erers, pages 3-13. Little, Brown & Co., 1906. 

10. Tappan, E. M. : European Hero Stories, pages 
152-156 and 161-165. Houghton -Mifflin Co., Boston, 
1909. 

11. Tappan, E. M. : Our Country's Struggles, 
pages 3-1-41. Houghton-Mifflin Co., Boston, 1902. 

2. What People Knew About the World 
Before Columbus Discovered America 

In 1490 the known world to the European people was only a little, 
limited stretch of territory — very, very small compai'ed to the world 
we know today. Just Europe and Northern Africa and Asia Minor 
were the countries they knew much about. The land of the East, 
Cathay and the Indies, was a far-awaj', mysterious, tremendously rich 
region that they dreamed about. It had gold mines waiting to be 
explored and rich treasures for those who were brave enough to find 
their way across the great ocean. They knew, too, that there was a 
bleak, frozen land just to the north of them, both east and west, where 
the people lived in curious snow and ice houses and where trees and 
grass and grain seldom grew (Iceland and Greenland). But though 
they knew so little, they were anxious to learn more about the strange 
people who they thought must live in these countries, and to get for 
themselves some of the wondrous riches in gold and silver and gems 
and fine robes which they thought surely were there. 

In some of the books we have listed in this lesson you will come 
across funny-looking maps showing what people thought the world 
was like in those times. Make a copy of one which you think is inter- 
esting, and then draw it on the blackboard so that your class-mates 
can see it. See also if you can trace on the wall-map what the known 
world was then. 

Suddenly, in 1492 — it seemed very sudden after all the centuries 
that they had had these small ideas about the world — their knowledge 
increased wonderfully. "Columbus and his marvellous exploits" were 
the words on every tongue. People were greatly excited with the news 
of his discoveries and the future was a great open book before them, 
"The short way to India is about to be opened and great wealth is 
ahead for all of us" was the greeting of nobles and owners of trading 
companies who met each other traveling about Spain, England, Hol- 
land, France, and Italy in 1500. 



THE WHITE MAN IN AMERICA 53 

You all know the stoiy of Columbus and his daring venture across 
the Atlantic, — how he secured the help of Isabella of Spain and sailed 
out into the unknown deeps of the seas, how after three months of 
danger and privation he sighted land in the AVestern world. This was 
not the mainland of America, but one of the islands of the West Indies. 
It is a very interesting story. Look it up in some book in your 
library, and make some notes so that you can tell the story to the class. 
Here are some books you can find it in : 

1. Atkinson, A. M. : The Europeayi Beginnings of 
American History, passes 279-283. Ginn & Company. 
New York, 1902. 

2. Barstow, Charles L. (editor) : Explorers and 
Settlers, pages 15-34. 

3. Bourne, H. E., and Benton, E. I.: Introdurtori/ 
American History, pages 116-157. D. C. Heath & 
Co., New York, 1912. 

4. Elson, H. W., and MacMullan, C. : The Story nf 
Our Countri/, pages 9-23. World Book Co.. Yonkers, 
1918. 

5. Hall, Jemiie: Our Ancestors in Europe, pag-es 
300-377. 

6. Hodgdon, Jeaunette R. : A First Course in Amer- 
ican History, Yolume I, pages 20-49. 

7. Johnson. William H. : The World's Discoverers, 
pages 14-17. 

8. Johnson, William H. : Pioneer Spaniards in 
America. Little, Brown & Co. 

9. Nida, W. L. : The Dawn of American History 
in Europe, paaes 279-296. Maemillan, New York, 
1921. 

10. Tappan, E. M. : Our Euro^^ean Ancestors, 
pages 156-171. Houghton-Mifflin Co., Boston, 1918. 

11. Tappan, E. M. : Our Country's Story, pages 
1-12. Houghton-Mifflin Co., Boston; 1902. 

12. Tappan, E. M. : American Hero Stories, pages 
1-13. Houghton-Mifflin Co.. Boston, 1920. 

3. Hov^ People Lived in Europe in 1400 — 1600 

1. Hall, Jennie : Our Ancestors in Europe, pages 
213-313. A very interesting account of castle life, 
how the workers . lived, and the religious life in the 
Middle Ages. 

2. Jes.sapp, Augustus: The Coming of the Friars. 
Chapter 2. "Village Life Six Hundred Years Ago." 
This is quoted in Tnell, Harriet E., and Hatch, Roy 
W. : Selected Readings in English History, pages 
106-122. Ginn & Co., 1913. 

3. Tappan, Eva M. : When Knights Were Bold. 
Houghton-Mifflin Co., 1911. Describes agriculture 
in the sixteenth centurv. 



54 westward movement and transportation 

4. Explorers of the 1500 's 

But although Columbus came in 1492, white people didn't come to 
settle down and make homes in Amei'ica for over a hundred years 
afterwards. You remember, do you not, the attempts of the English 
to find a way through to India by what they called the "northwest" 
and the "northeast passages"? And you remember how the two 
Cabots, John and Sebastian, tried to break through the northern part 
of our continent, and sailed along the coast of America in 1497 ; and 
the story of Martin Frobisher and his daring expedition through the 
iceland of Labrador — how they struck curious black metals and thought 
they had discovered gold. Then the Spanish adventurers, Cortez and 
Earle, who discovered gold in Mexico and South America, and were 
getting wealthier every day. And after the Spaniards, John Hawkins, 
who was getting rich selling negroes into slaverj^ ; and Francis Drake, 
the worst thief of all those old adventurers, fighting and pillaging the 
Spanish ships. 

The stories of those times are very exciting. You can find them in 
books like these : 

1. Atkinson, A. M. : The European Beginnings of 
American History, pages 298-318. Ginn & Company, 
New York, 1912. 

2. Bacon, Edwin M. : The Boy's Hakluyt, pages 
143-307. Charles Scribncr's Sons, New York. 1930. 
The most interesting account is to be found here, re- 
wi-itten from Hakhiyt's Principal Navigations. 

3. Bai-stow, Charles L. (editor) : Explorers and 
Settlers, pages 57-67, 78-96. Tells of some early voy- 
ages. 

4. Cheyney, Edward P. : Readings in English His- 
tory, drawn from the original sources, pages 394-401. 
Gives part of Frobisher's journal, an account of 
Drake's voyage, 1577-1580. 

5. Elson, ll. W., and MaoMuUan, C. : The Story of 
Our Country, pages 24-50. World Book Company, 
Yonkers, 1918. 

6. Hodgdon, Jeannette Rector: A First Course in 
American History, Vol. I, pages 50-77. An ele- 
mentary histoiy. Accounts of Jolm Cabot, FrancLs 
Drake, "and Sir Waltea- Raleigh. 

7. Johnson, William Henry : The World's Discov- 
erers, pages 189-227, 272-320, 228-271. First refer- 
ences give an interesting account of attempts to find 
a Noithwe.st Passage, last reference gives an account 
of Drake's voyages. 

8. Nida, W. L. : The Dawn of America's History 
in Europe, pages 297-305 and 316-317. Macmillan, 
New York, 1921. 

9. Tappan, E. M. : Otir European Ancestors, pages 
173-196. Houghton-Mifflin Company, Boston, 1918. 

10. Tappa^n, E. M. : American Hero Stories, pages 
14-24. Houghton-Mifflin Company, Boston, 1920. 



the white man in america o5 

5. Stories of Our Colonies 

All through the 1500 's far-sighted men of England, Spain, and 
France had dreamed of colonizing America. Many were the schemes 
of men like Walter Raleigh to send people to America to live and 
make a new England in the wilderness. But not till after 1607 did 
people really succeed in establishing settlements in which they 
could live in the wilderness. You remember how the Vir- 
ginia Colony started at Jamestown in 1607, and failed. John Smith 
and the Indian fighting were interesting, very likely, in what you read 
of that expedition. You studied how the Pilgrims left England and 
went to Holland, and how some of them came to America and made 
the first permanent settlement at Plymouth in 1620. Do you remember 
the story of their great trials the first winter, of Miles Standish, their 
soldier leader, and of the way they had to struggle to keep things going 
in their new homes? And then it was ten years later that the larger 
and more important Puritan settlement at Massachusetts Bay — now 
Boston — was established. 

Read over some of these stories of the way the first colonies were 
started, so that you can talk about them in class. Find out why the 
people came to Massachusetts and New York and Pennsylvania and 
Virginia and the Carolinas and Georgia. Find out what kinds of 
people they were and what real differences there were between the 
different colonies. 

1. Andrew, Charles M. : The Fathers of New Eng- 
land. The Chronicles of America, Vol. (3. Yale Uni- 
vers^ity Press, New Haven, 1919. 

2. Barstow, Charles L. (editor) : Explorers and 
Settlers. Jamestown, pages 145-155; New York, 
pages 171-188 ; Plymouth, pages 189-219. 

3. Elson, H. W., and MacMullan, C. : Th^ Story of 
Our Countrij, pages 39-102, 113-129. 

4. Paris, J. T. : Beal Stories From Our History. 
Chaptei-s 1-12. Ginn & Company, New York, 1916. 

5. Fisher, Sydney G. : The Qu/iker Colonies. The 
Chronicles of America. Vol. 8. 

6. Goodwin, Maude Wilder : Dutch and English on 
j the Hudson. The Chronicles of America. Vol. 7. 
f Yale University Press, New Haven, 1919. 

7. Kefer group to such school United States his- 
tories as are available. 

8. Hodgdon, Jeannette R-eetor: .1 First Caurse in 
American History. Vol. I. Pages 78-222. A very 
simple account of the founding of the colonie.s. 

9. Johnston, Mary: Pioneers of the Old South. 
The Chronicles of America. Vol. 5. Yale University 
Press, New Haven, 1918. A veiy interesting ac- 
count. Gives tlie story of Vii'ginia, Maryland, the 
Carolinas and Georgia. 



56 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

10. Tappan, E. M. : Our Country's Storif, pages 
42-51, 52-fiO, 61-70. 71-82, S3, SS, 9S, 99, 104- 
108. 10t)-114. Houghton-Mifflin Co., Boston, 1902. 

11. Tappan, E. M. : American Hero Stories, pages 
24-48, 59-84, 108-116. Honghton-Mifflin Co., Bos- 
ton, 1920. 

6. Life in the Different Colonies, 1700-1790 

Between 1620 and 1790 a new nation of 3,000,000 people grew up 
along the Atlantic Coast from Massachusetts to Georgia. If you had 
travelled through the southern colonies of Maryland, Virginia, the 
Carolinas, and Georgia in 1790, you would have found small towns, with 
struggling young villages here and there at convenient cross-roads. 
The people were living on farms. These were very large sometimes, 
covering hundreds of acres and always along the banks of rivers. 
Each large farm or "plantation," as they were called, was like a little 
city all to itself. Here the owner and his family lived and his hun- 
dreds of negro slaves and perhaps a few white servants. Everything 
needed in food and clothing was raised and made right on the 
plantation. 

The most important crop was tobacco, which was loaded and sent 
down the rivers directly from the farms. Notice how the rivers in 
Virginia and the Carolinas run from west to east. This made it 
possible to have farms up the rivers to the west because the farmers 
could easily get their products down to the sea-board. 

Now what was New England like at this time? If we had visited 
it, we would have found small farms instead of large plantations. The 
farmers' homes were in small villages and the farmers went out from 
them to till their fields. In so rocky and hilly a country one would 
expect small fields. The old laws forbade anyone to live more than a 
mile from the meeting-house, the reason for this law probably being 
partly for religious reasons and partly for safety. You would have 
seen these farmers using ox-carts and ox-sleds, and only rarely a 
vehicle on four wheels. The New England farmers were not as lonely 
as those in the South, but they had to work very much harder. We 
would have found many of the people busy at shipbuilding, and many 
who made their living either by sailing ships with cargoes for other 
countries or bv fishing. 



With this much as an introduction, see if you can find accounts of 
the way the colonists lived in the days of 1750 to 1790. If your 
library contains some of the following books, the references will be 
helpful : 



THE WHITE MAN IN AMERICA 57 

1. Andrews, Charles M. : Colonial Folkways. The 
( 'hronicles of America. Vol. 9. Yale University Press, 
New Haven, 1919. The best account of Colonial life. 

2. Beard, C. A., and Bagley, W. C : The Bistonj 
of the American People, pages 9S-110. Maemillan 
Company, New York, 1920. 

3. Bourne, H. E.. and Benton, E. J. : llisforn of 
the United Stutes, pages 121-146. 

4. Earle, Alice Morse : Curious Punishments of By- 
gone Days. Herbert A. Stone & Co., Chicago, 189(i. 

5. Earle, Alice Moi-se : Customs and Fashions in 
Old New England. Charles Scribner's Sons, New 
York, 1899. Chapters 1, 4, 9, 10. and 13 would be 
of special interest. 

6. Faris, John T. : Real Stories From Our History. 
Ginn & Company, Boston, 1916. Selections are from 
authentic records. Special attention is called to 
Cliapters 3, 5, 6, 7, and 9 to 15. 

7. Guitteau, W. B. : Our United States : A His- 
tory, pages 126-141. Silver. Burdett Company, New 
York, 1919. 

<S. Hart, Albei't Busnell : Colonial Children Source- 
Readers in American History, No. 1. The Maemillan 
Company, New York. 1920. The following selections 
will be of interest : 

No. 69. Colonial Sundays, pages 194-196. 

No. 68. Young Peojjle's Life in New Hampshire, 

pagers 192-194. 
No. 50. Plantation Life in Virginia, pages 149-152. 
No. 76. Benjamin Franklin's Bovhood, pages 210- 

214. 
No. 82. A Tutor and His Pupils, pages 224-232. 

9. Jenks, Tudor: When America Was New. 
TTiomas Y. Crowell & Coniiiany. New York, 1907. 
Chapters 5 through 12. 

10. Spark, E. E. : The Expansion of the American 
P conic, pages 48-68, 88-103. Scott, Fbresman & Com- 
pany, New York, 1900. 

11. Tappan, E. M. : Letters From. Colonial Chil- 
dren's Picture Book. Houghton-Mifflin & Company, 
Boston, 1911. 

12. Thwaites, R. G., and Kendall, C. N. : A His- 
tory of the United States for Grammar Grades, pages 
107-120. Houghtoai-Mifflin Co., Boston, 1912. 

Stories of Early Leaders — George Washington, Boone, 
AND Others 

1. Hodgdon, Jeannette Rector: .4 First Course in 
American History. Vol. 2. D. C. Heath & Co., 
Boston, 1908. An elementary history. It gives an 
interesting- account of early leaders. 

2. Lefferts, Walter: American Leaders. Book 1. 
0. B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia, 1919. Interesting 
biographies of men who helped to make our country 
independent, who helped to make it strong", and of 
those who have helped to make it larger. 



vi. A MAP st[:dy of the westward movement— 

1790-1890 

In 1620 America was the red man's continent — in 1890 it was the 
white man's continent. In 1620 there wasn't a white man's town or 
city in America — in 1922 there are many thousands. 

Even in 1790 — 170 years after the landing of the Pilgrims — 
America was the red man's continent, for the white man had spread 
only a hundred to a hundred and fifty miles back from the coast. The 
Indian inherited the woods and clearings, the rolling prairies and the 
rocky mountains. The white man in the America of 1922 is heir to 
possessions which extend even to the Orient. See Fig. 9. 




But between 1790 and 1890 — one hundred years of history — the 
white man (mostly Anglo-Saxon in blood) conquered the wilderness 
and took over the whole area from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific 
Ocean. 

Fig. 10 is a moving picture of this great Westward movement froiii 
coast to coast. It shows how the onward march of caravans, flatboats. 
covered wagons, and cabins, cornfields, villages proceeded as time went 
on. Fig. 10 is one of the most important single set of maps you will 
ever study. It pictures the most remarkable movement of a people the 
world has ever known. In 1790, 4.000.000 people were living along the 
Atlantic Coast, as far back as the eastei-ii slopes of the Appalachian 



MAP STUDY OF WESTWARD MOVEMENT 59 

Mountains (see map for 1790, Fig. 10) ; in 1910 there were 93,000.000 
people living' in the ITiiited States, and they were scattered 2800 miles 
across the full M'idth of the continent. 

Glance down over the six maps and see the movement of our people. 
Open to a map of the United States that shows rivers and states and 
cities. Figure out just where the people were at different times. 

To the Teacher: Througli an eri'or in drafting, the 
1S50 and 1S90 maps give a false impression of 
greater eastern density in popnlation than in 1910. 
It will be wise to discuss this with the class. 

See how they began to fill in along the Ohio River around Pitts- 
burg, Louisville, and Cincinnati about 1790 to 1800. Ohio became a 
state in 1802, and our laws said that 60,000 people must be living in a 
territory before it could be admitted to the Union as a state. Now 
see what wonderful advance had been made along the rivers in thirty 
years, ' from 1790 to 1820 ! People were living up and down the 
Mississippi Valley, and the Ohio Valley was filling up rapidly ; Indiana 
became a state in 1816; Illinois was admitted in 1818. 

The surge of population over the country continued into the north 
and south as well as to the west during the next 30 years, 1820-1850. 
Michigan. Wisconsin. Iowa, Missouri, Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, 
and Alabama followed Kentucky and Tennessee into the fold of Amer- 
ican states. Towns grew along the Missouri River and along the Red 
River. Trails branched out from where Kansas City is now — the Santa 
Fe trail to the South, the California trail almost straight west, the 
Oregon trail to the noith. Civilization was rapidly spreading out 
toAvard the Rockies and the Pacific. 

In the next forty years the settling of the country was accom- 
plished! By 1890 there were settlements all the way out to the Pacific 
Coast, and it was very difficult to find any considerable area of land 
where at least two people were not living on each square mile. This 
meant that the frontier had disappeared. A line could no longer be 
drawn from north to south which divided the inhabited land from 
the uninhabited — not even a zigzag line. The "gold rush" of 1849 
had taken thousands over the tedious trails of the Rockies. Covered 
wagons by tons of thousands lumbered over the four months' journey 
to the far Oregon valleys. The Dakotas, Nebraska. Kansas, Colorado, 
Wyoming. Idaho, Montana, Utah. California, Oregon, and Washington 
became the homes of citizens of the United States. The red man was 
driven back step by step, fighting constantly for his land, until finally 
he was limited to reservations which the white man marked out for 
him. As a result of this expansion westward, towns sprang up and 
manufacturing developed in Kansas City, Omaha, Denver, Minne- 
apolis; cattle raising became a great Western industry and meat- 



60 



WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 



ack area shows where 
there were A5 or more 

sq.jmile. 




Where the American 
people lived in 

1790 



Shaded area 

shows where 

there were 

from 2 to 45 

people per 

sc^. mile. 




Fk;. 10 



MAP STUDY OF WESTWARD MOVEMENT 



61 




Black area shows where there were 
45 or more people per sq n; 



1910 

The American people 
fill ihe land be+ween 
ihe two oceans. 



Fk;. 10 



62 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

packing flourished in Chicago and other centers. Great transconti- 
nental railroads connected East with West and North with South, 

So you see the frontier was a thing of the past. In 1880 the 
United States Director of the Census said of it: 

''Up to and including 1880 the country had a frontier of 
settlements, but at present the unsettled area has been so broken 
into by isolated bodies of settlement that there can hardly be 
said to be a frontier line. In the discussion of its extent, the 
westward movement, etc., it cannot therefore any longer have a 
place in the census reports."^ 
Frotn 1880, then, until now, the movement has been that of settling 
more thickly rather than over more territory. 

MAP EXFJRCISE 

1. Of the settled parts of the country in 1790, where do you think 

the people were in the most danger from the Indians ? 

2. From 1790 to 1800 what new lands were settled? Why were 

these settled rather than others, at that time? 

3. Why do you think the region around Columbus, Cincinnati, 

and Louisville was filled in before the lands to the north, 
south, and east of it ? 

4. When did real settlement occur west of the Mississippi River? 

5. When was the region around Chicago settled ? Around Kansas 

City, Missouri ? Why do j^ou think people were living in 
Kansas City before they were living in Chicago? 

6. Be ready to trace oil the wall map the principal routes by 

which the pioneer settlers moved westward. Did they use 
the Great Lakes? Check the lakes in the list below which 
you know they used from the stories you have read. 

1. Lake Ontario 3. Lake Huron 

2. Lake Erie 4. Lake Superior 

5. Lake Michigan 

7. How does your ansAver to question 6 help you to answer ques- 

tion 5 ? 

8. Between what years was settlement really established in Mis- 

souri and Iowa? 

9. Do you remember what wonderful discoverv was made in 

1848? 

10. How did this discovery affect the movement of our people 

West over the Rocky Mountains? Study the 1850 map of 
Fig. 10. Does it show that two people per square mile 
were living in settlements west of Missouri in 1850? How 
can you tell from looking at the map? 



'Turner. Frederick Jackson: ''The Frontier in American History," page 39. 



MAP STUDY OF WESTWARD MOVEMENT 



63 



11. What regions in the West were filling up in the years from 

1850 to 1890? 

12. What was the chief difference between the distribution of 

our people in 1890 and in 1910? 

While the Westward Movement Was On, What Was 
Happening to the Growth of Population? 

What was happening to the population east of the Mississippi and 
the Appalachians while this great westward movement was going on? 
As the people moved into Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, 
California, and the other western regions, was the population thinning 
out along the x\tlantic Coast? Was the population increasing at all? 
If so, slowly or rapidly? Study Fig, 11 and state two or three gen- 
eral conclusions vou draw from it. 




1790 1800 



1820 1830 1840 1850 I860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 



Population in the United States 1790 to 1020 
Fig. 11 

Was our population growing rapidly or slowly when the pioneers 
of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the Carolinas moved over the Appa- 
lachian Mountains? When did it begin to grow rapidly? In what 
ten year periods has it grown most rapidly? 



1790 
3,929,214 



I 



1920 
105,710,620 



Fto. 12 



Fig. 12 shows that whereas in 1790 we had less than 4,000,000 
people, in 1920 we had nearly 106.000,000. How do you account for 



64 



WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 



the fact that our people grew so fast in numbers? Where did all 
these people come from ? Does it mean we are a nation of very large 
families? That American fathers and mothers have many children, 
and that therefore our population increases naturally, at a very rapid 
rate ? 

Yes, in the early years of our country, from say, 1790-1840, it 
did moan that. The increase in our population was largely due to large 
families. But beginning in the 1840 's and 1850 's, there was another 
very important cause of increase, namely, immigration from foreign 
countries. We shall read more about that later. For the present let 
us study Fig. 13. It shows how much of the increase in our popula- 
tion was actually due to immigration. 




ts: „ fit^m^^r 



1790 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1551 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 1911 
1800 1810 I8?0 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 19ZI 

Fig. 13 



QUESTIONS FOR YOU TO ANSAVKR 

During what period of ten years, according to Fig. 13, did our 
population increase most rapidly? 

Does the immigration show a corresponding increase in the same 
time? 

See how the population curve mounts decade by decade ! Do you 
notice that it was 1840 before immigration added any important 
number to our growing nation ? 



MAP STUDY OF WESTWARD MOVEMENT 65 

What was the gain between 1830 and 1840 in total population? 

About what fraction of this number were immigrants? 

What fraction of the gain in population between 1850 and 1860 
was due to immigration? 

Make a table in j'our notebook showing the approximate fraction 
of the increases in population decade by decade that was caused by 
immigration. 

Is there any period during which we gained more people by immi- 
gration than from any other source? 

Now study the six maps of Fig. 10 again. With the people in- 
creasing in numbers as they did, what effect would the passing of a 
few million people westward have on the eastern population? What 
do the maps show was actually happening in our eastern states from 
1790 to 1880 as the settling of the West was taking place? 

The black areas on the six maps show where villages, towns, and 
cities were filling in. As the frontier moved steadily westward, and 
people left the East, did the population in the East become smaller ' 
No. As people pushed on into the West, others filled their 
places in the East. Millions of people came from foreign countries, 
and great numbers settled in our eastern towns and cities. So you 
see, it was not only in the far West that population grew rapidly ; 
it increased even more rapidly in the East, We shall discuss this 
question fully later on. 



VII. TERRITORY OWNED BY THE UNITED STATES 
AT DIFFERENT TIMES, 1790-1920 

Turn back to Fig. 9, page 58, which shows the great territory 
we are in possession of now in 1922. How long have the American 
people owned so much territory? Did we settle the western land as 
rapidly as we acquired it? Who owned it before us? How did we 
get it? Did we buy it, or did we conquer it — that is, take it away 
from some one by force? Our next problem is to see how we gained 
more and more territory as we settled more and more of the land. 

Turn back to Fig. 6. That shows who owned the land in the 
1600 's and 1700 's. North America was "the red man's continent" 
when Columbus sighted the West Indies Islands in 1492 ; when the 
Cabots sailed along the Atlantic Coast in 1497 to 1502 ; when Hendrik 
Hudson sailed up the Hudson River in 1609 ; when the Jamestown 
(Colony (Virginia) was founded, 1607, and wiped out shortly 
after; when the Pilgrims settled in Plymouth in 1620, and the Puri- 
tans settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. Our stories of 
the early frontiers show us, too, that all but a coastal fringe was the 
red man's even in 1790 — nearly 200 years after the first settling at 
Jamestown and Plymouth. In 170 years (1620-1790) the white man 
— 90 per cent Anglo-Saxon — had laid claim only to a strip of 80 to 
100 miles in from the Atlantic seaboard. It was at that time, how- 
ever, that the real history of our nation began, for in 1783 we had 
won the Revolutionary War and become independent of Great 
Britain. 

Now before the war there was a British fort at Vincennes, Indi- 
ana, and this was the key to the northwest territory. It was so located 
that in order to get into this territory, which consisted of what is now 
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, the fort had to be 
taken. During the Revolution a man by the name of George Rogers 
Clark with a small group of American riflemen, floated down the Ohio 
River until they reached the Mississippi to Cahokia, Illinois, and cap- 
tured a fort there. After several w-eeks of severe hardships, wading 
through the flooded fields of Illinois and Indiana, they took the fort 
at Vincennes by surprise and captured it. The northwest territory 
was thus opened to us, and when we made peace with England in 
1783 and she recognized the independence of the colonies, we were 
able to force her to concede all the territory as far west as the Missis- 
sippi River, as shown by the first map of Fig. 14. 



OUR TERRITORY 1790-1920 



67 



Now we have said that in 1783 we acquired the Northwest terri- 
tory from England. But if we look back to the map, Fig. 5, we see 
that it was the French, not the English, who were in the Ohio and 




Fig. 14 

Mississippi valleys in 1750. Do you remember what happened that 
made England possessor of the region in 1763, so that it was hers to 
cede to us twenty years later? 

Study the other maps of Fig. 14 and see who owned the rest of 
the territory that is now part of the United States, and how piece by 
piece the Americans gained all this land by 1853. 

Into what four great sections was the land of the Knited States 
divided in 1803 ? 

How We Got the Plains Between the Mississippi 
AND the Rockies 

THE PURCHASE OF THE LOUISIANA TERRITORY 

Compare the United States of 1783 with the United States of 1803. 
From the map in the lower right-hand corner of Fig. 14 you will see 
what the territory which was added to our possessions in 1803 was 
called. You will notice also from the first map that France had 
owned this territory since 1800, and from the last one that we 
acquired it from her by purchase in 1803. 

Now why do you suppose we wanted to buy the Louisiana territory 
at that time? And why do you suppose France was willing to sell it? 

You remember that the United States had gained possession of 
the territory from the Appalachian Mountains west to the Mississippi 
River at the close of the Revolutionary War. In the next twenty 



68 



WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 




OUR TERRITORY 1790-1920 69 

years hundreds of thousands of Americans broke through the Appa- 
lachian barrier and moved into settlements as far west as the Missis- 
sippi River. 

By the way, do you know why we call the Appalachian Mountains 
a barrier! Study the relief map in Fig. 15 and see if you can tell 
the reason. You will see at once why for these westward moving 
pioneers trade with the Atlantic coast regions was very difficult. The 
hauling of goods overland was not only very slow but very expensive. 
Look at the map, Fig. 15, again and see if there was a way of getting 
around this difficulty. What about easier markets ? Do you find some ? 
And do you find another trading route? Yes, the easiest and most 
natural trading route was down the rivers, the Ohio and the Missis- 
sippi; and the American pioneers used it, with New Orleans, then a 
Spanish town, as their chief trading city. The Spanish settlers there 
had allowed the Americans special trading privileges, and by 1800 
more than one-third of all the commerce of the United States was 
going through this Spanish port. This means that by 1800 western 
trade had become pretty important, and that New Orleans had become 
a very important city to the Americans. 

Now in 1802 these trading privileges were withdrawn. The Amer- 
icans learned that in 1800 the Louisiana territory, which included the 
port of New Orleans, had been given to Spain by France. NoV this 
was a very serious matter for the United States. France at that time 
was the most powerful country in Europe — probably the most power- 
ful country in the world. A great general, Napoleon Bonaparte, whom 
you have probably heard of, had gained control in France, and within 
a few years had succeeded in conquering nearlj'^ all of Europe. And 
now he was reaching out for more worlds to conquer. He dreamed of 
a new French Europe in America. Do you remember what happened 
to the new France in America of the 1600 's and 1700 's? You see 
France, or rather her governors, were trying for a second time to get 
a good foothold in America. 

Now when the trading privileges were taken away from the western 
American traders, some of the new states in that region threatened to 
take New Orleans by force. They also said that if our national gov- 
ernment didn't do something to get their pri^nleges restored, they 
would withdraw from the Union. This was what the southern states 
tried to do sixty years later, and we had to fight a terrible four-year 
war to make them understand that states could not leave the Union 
or the United States. But in 1802 the threats of the western states 
were not carried out because their needs impressed President Jefferson 
and other officials of the government so much that steps were taken 
by America as a nation to get the trading privileges back. 



70 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

But what could they do? Plere was Napoleon on the other side 
getting ready to send colonies over to settle on France's territory. If 
this ever happened, there would be no hope whatever for the Amer- 
icans who wanted to trade tlirough their port, for Napoleon's one pur- 
pose was to conquer the world for Fiance, and he would grant nothing 
except for his own gain. 

The American people decided to try to come to some agreement 
with France, so in 1803 the President commissioned three men — James 
Monroe, afterwards President of the United States, Robert Livingston, 
and Charles Pinckney — to go to France and see if they could arrange 
things with Napoleon. 

It happened that a recent uprising in the French island of 8anto 
Domingo in the West Indies had cost the French a great deal of 
money, and a great many of theii- best soldiers had either been killed 
or died later of yellow fever on this tropical island. This made 
Napoleon hesitate in his plans. But besides this, he was about to start 
out to conquer more countries in Europe and needed money. He 
realized, too, what empire-building four thousand miles from France 
meant. Perhaps, as one writer^ says in his description of these nego- 
tiations, "Napoleon also realized that he could not hold new France 
against the down-the-river pressure of the people of the West. A car- 
bine ||?un] and a little maize [Indian corn] in a sack are enough for 
an American to wander about in the forests alone for a whole month. 
With this carbine, he kills the wild cattle and deer for food, and 
defends himself from the savages. The maize, dampened, serves him 
in lieu of bread." 

Napoleon may have been thinking that a few thousands of such 
men could hold New France. But he had a second thought, for what 
did he do but amaze the American commissioners by offering them 
the entire territory for one hundred million francs — about twenty 
million dollars. After considerable argument and debate on both 
sides, fifteen million dollars was finally agreed upon as the sale price 
of Louisiana. 

' ' Fifteen millions of dollars ! ' ' The people were astounded at the 
amount, and patriots and printers and writers all over the country 
tried to describe it. ''Fifteen millions of dollars!" they would ex- 
claim. "The sale of a wildei-ness has not usually commanded a price 
so high. Ferdinand Gorges received but twelve hundred and fifty 
pounds sterling for the Province of Maine. William Penn gave for 
the wilderness that now beai-s his name but a trifle over five thousand 
pounds. Fifteen millions of dollars! A breath will suffice to pro- 



'.Tohnson. AUen: ".lefferson and His CoUeasues," pag-e 72. Tale University 
Press. New Haven, l!t21. 



OUR TERRITORY 1790-1920 71 

iiouiice the words. A few strokes of the pen will express the sum on 
paper. But not one man in a thousand has any conception of the 
magnitude of the amount. Weigh it, and there will be four hundred 
and thirty-three tons of solid silver. Load it into wagons, and there 
will be eight hundred and sixty-six of them. Place the wagons in a 
line, giving two rods to each, and they will cover a distance of five and 
one-third miles. Hire a laborer to shovel it into the carts, and, though 
he load sixteen each day, he will not finish the work in two months. 
Stack it up dollar on dollar, and, supposing nine to make an inch, the 
pile will be more than three miles high. It would load twenty-five 
sloops; it would pay an army of twenty-five thousand men forty 
shillings a Aveek each for twenty-five years ; it would, divided among 
the population of the country, give three dollars for each man, woman, 
and child. All the gold and all the silver coin in the Union would, if 
collected, fall vastly short of such a sum. We must, therefore, create 
a stock, and for fifteen years to come pay two thousand four huiidred 
and sixty-five dollars' interest each day."^ 

This sale, although it meant fifteen million dollars, did not name 
the boundaries of the vast tract of land. In fact no one knew^ what 
they were. 

Livingston tried to find out from the French Minister, Tallyrand. 

"What are the bounds of Louisiana?" he asked. 

"I do not knoAv. " replied Talleyrand. "You must take it as we 
received it." 

''But what did you mean to take?" urged Livingston. 

" I do not know, ' ' was the answer. 

' * Then you mean that we shall construe it our own way ? ' ' 

"I can give you no direction," said the astute Frenchman. "You 
have made a noble bargain for yourselves, and I suppose you will 
make the most of it." 

And make the most of it the Americans did. Review your map 
showing where the American people were in 1800, Fig. 10. Now study 
the 1850 map of Fig. 10, How much of the territory included in the 
Louisiana Purchase of 1803 was settled bv 1850? 



THE PURCHASE OF FLORIDA 

After we had purchased the Louisiana territory, the United States 
owned all the land west to the Rockies except a little strip in south- 
eastern United States — what is now Florida, southern Alabama, and 
southern Mississippi. Find it on the lower left-hand map of Fig. 14. 

iMcMaster, John B. : "A History of the People of the United States," Vol. II, 
page 638. D. Appleton & Company. New York, 1917. 



72 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

You will notice that ciloiig with the lai'ge Southwest territory this 
corner also belonged to Spain. 

Now this land was full of swamps and everglades which were excel- 
lent places for escaped negroes, Indians, and smugglers to hide. Be- 
sides, the Spanish hated the Americans, and delighted in stirring up 
the Indians to attack the settlements. This happened so much that 
our patience was finally exhausted, and Jackson, an officer in our 
army at the time, was sent to put a stop to the troubles. This he 
did in short order. He went right into the Spanish territory with his 
men, put a stop to the riots, and hanged tlie leaders of these trouble- 
makers. 

Of course this angered Spain exceedingly, but on our side we had 
claims against her for damage to our citizens in this region. The out- 
come of the dispute was that Spain agi-eed to give us the territory 
on payment of the sum of $5,000,000 — one-third the amount we paid 
France for the Louisiana territory. 

Compare the amounts of land in the two purchases. In which 
case did we get the most for our money? 

One great writer on geography has said that a river is not an 
effective boundary. Do you think this statement is true? Why? 
Many wars that have been fought where river boundaries have been in 
dispute show that the statement is not altogether true. One of t'hese is 
the old, old dispute between the French and the Germans. The French 
still claim that the west bank of the Rhine River should be their east- 
ern boundary, while the Germans declare that the highlands west of 
•the Rhine belong to them, and they still dispute and fight over it. But 
where thousands of people settle on one side of a river valley, as the 
Americans had done in 1800 in the valleys of the Mississippi and Ohio 
rivers, it is reasonably certain that the rivers' would be crossed, and 
that settlements still farther west would be made. The Americans, 
however, believed that the Louisiana territory belonged to them even 
before it was purchased, because the King of England had granted to 
the land companies that settled colonies in America, all the land as far 
west as the Pacific Ocean. Do you consider this a good reason for 
considering the far West American territory at that time (1803) ? To 
v^'hom did it really and truly belong? Why was it that the original 
owners could not keep it? 



HOW OREGON BECAME A TART OF THE UNITED STATES 

But now remember that the United States did not know what the 
boundaries of this Louisiana territory were. Thomas Jefferson, our 
President, had always had a deep interest in the West. Hence in 1804 
he commissioiu'd two Americans. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, 



OUR TERRITORY 1790-1920 73 

to lead a party in the exploration of this new territory. The latter, 
William Clark, was a brother of the famous pioneer, George Rogers 
Clark, who, you will recall, had gained the Northwest territory for us 
during the Revolutionary War by the capture of Vincennes. Indiana. 
This group were to explore the new country, but they were also to 
collect information of a scientific character in regard to the mineral 
resources, and the animals and plants of the Great West. 

Starting at St. Louis in May of 1804. the party ascended the Mis- 
souri River all the way to Mandan, near what is now the state capitol 
of North Dakota. Here they spent the winter among friendly Indians. 
In the Spring of 1805, with an Indian woman as guide, they followed 
the Missouri River to its source, then went over the Rocky Mountains 
to the Columbia River. They floated down the Columbia, and on 
November 7, 1805, they came in view of the ocean, "this great Pacific 
Ocean which we have been so long anxious to see, and the roreing or 
noise made by the waves brakeing on the rocky shores (as I suppose) 
may be heard distinctly."^ Trace the route on Fig. 15. 

On the return journey in 1806 the party explored other parts «dl 
the territory, and on September 23, 1806, they reached St. Louis. The 
expedition was the first real overland trip of Americans to the Pacific, 
and the reports of this party undoubtedly stimulated the movements 
of thousands of people into the far West. The route, however, which 
they traced was too roundabout, and later you will read of the great 
movement of pioneers into Oregon by way of the "Oregon Trail." 

For the next forty years the country beyond the Rockies — the 
Oregon country — was jointly claimed by England and the United 
States. Each had made explorations and had sent trading expeditions 
to it about 1800. Later you will read how thousands of permanent 
settlers took up this land and turned it into fertile farms. In 1846 a 
treaty between England and the United States divided the country, so 
that England got the upper part (now part of Canada) and the 
laiited States got the lower Oregon country (what is now the States 
of Oregon and Washington). 

To the Teacher: For description of this country 
see Parkiuan, Francis : The Oregon Trail, and Hougli,, 
Emerson : The Covered Wagon. Five of motion pic- 
ture fihns of the Society for Visual Education, 800 
Washington Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, develop by 
pictures and animated maps, the entire westward 
movement. These are excellent supplementary mate- 
rial for the study of this phase of Ainerican history. 



^''Original Journals of Lewis and Clark Expedition" (Thwaite's ed.). Vol. 
[II. page 210. Quoted by Channing. Edward: "The .Teffersonian System," page 
93. Harper & Brothers. New York. 1906. 



74 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

On the wall map trace the route of the Lewis and Clark expedition. 
Make a summary in your notebook of the way in which we got the 
Louisiana territory. How do you think this purchase stimulated the 
westward movement of Americans? 

Now open a geography and find a map from which you can tell 
what states were made from the Louisiana territory. 

What part of this great region is the present state of Louisiana? 
He careful not to confuse the state with the ''territory." For nearly 
a century we have not called the larger territory that we bought from 
Fi-ance in 1803 by the name of "Louisiana." 

Look at Fig. 14, page 67. What was this territory called in 1826? 
What parts of the far West did we not own in 1826? 



HOW WE GOT THE SOUTHWEST TERRITORY FROM MEXICO, 1845-1848 

Which parts had Ave acquired by 1850, when the "forty-niners" 
Avere going over the Rockies by the thousands? Is it interesting to 
you that gold Avas discovered in California and the "gold-rush" began 
ill the same year, 1848, that this vast territory was acquired from 
JV^xico ? 

How do you think we got the lands from Mexico? Did we buy 
them as we did the Louisiana territory ? No, the story is far different. 
Some Americans feel a little uncomfortable Avhile others feel rather 
proud and patriotic Avhen they think of the way we did actually get 
the southwest portion of our country 75 years ago. The story may be 
briefly told as folloAvs: 

It is said that colonies and states great distances from the central 
government have a tendency to free themselves from such a central 
government and become independent countries. The English colonists 
did this in 1776 ; the Spanish colonists in Venezuela, Peru, Colombia, 
Chile, and Mexico accomplished it early in the 1800 's; the Portuguese 
colonists gained their independence later. In each case the mother 
country was separated by the Atlantic Ocean, a distance that a century 
ago made it difficult to govern colonies easily. 

But all these new nations were at first Aveak and struggling coun- 
tries and had little control over the acts of their own people. Northern 
Mexico, Avhile the richest province of the country, was practically un- 
inhabited. To develop this region, Mexico made the fatal mistake of 
inviting Americans to settle in it. Today we call this region Texas. 

Thousands of Americans, most of them southerners, SAvept into 
this ncAv SouthAvest. They Avere in search of new lands on which to 
raise cotton. That crop exhausts the soil rapidly, so the southern 
planter Avas continually pushing Avestward on to new soil. By 1820 
he Avas beyond the Mississippi. 



OUR TERRITORY 1790-1920 75 

Mexico saw her mistake only aftei- the Americans had "grabbed up" 
all the good land in Texas. She then tried to oust the "foreign 
gringoes." But they refused to go; war followed, the Mexican gov- 
ernment was weak, and Texas declared herself an independent republic. 

Although the Americans were only a fourth of the population of 
Texas, they were able to bring about the independence of the terri- 
tory, and soon sought annexation to the United States. 

The question of annexing Texas aroused our people to a good deal 
of debate because the North was opposed to more slave territory ; 
they feared that if Texas was taken in, the slave-holding states of the 
South would have more senators and could then gain control of our 
national government. The North was able for a time to block the 
treaty providing for the annexation of Texas, but in the end they 
were unable to prevent it. A majority of votes was all that was 
needed and the South secured these. Texas thus became a part of the 
United States in 1845. 

Trouble with Mexico was bound to come, because Texas as a new 
republic had never attempted to mark off the land that was hers from 
the land that was Mexico's. Turn back to Fig. 14, page 67, and 
notice where the disputed territory was. Americans said that the 
Rio Grande River was the boundary line ; the Mexicans claimed terri- 
tory beyond it. As in many boundary disputes of history, both coun- 
tries sent armies into the region which each claimed, and the result 
was war. The World AVar that has just closed started in much the 
same way. Both the French and the Germans in 1914 told their 
people that the enemy had invaded their sacred soil and that they must 
defend it. Whether the Germans were right or the French were 
right, war started because men armed and trained to fight were lined 
up against each other in the disputed region. So it was in 1846, 
and when the Mexicans attempted to drive a few Americans from the 
territory they claimed, the Americans said that American blood had 
been "spilled on American soil," and that therefore Mexico had 
declared war upon us. Now, seventy-five years after the Mexican war, 
we can look back at it disinterestedly, and for that reason judge the 
situation inore fairly. 

Boundary disputes have arisen with England in a similar fashion. 
The early treaties did not define clearlj^ the Canadian border, but we 
talked the matter over with England and compromised, as in the 
case of Oregon, each side getting part of the disputed area. War was 
avoided, and today Canada and the United States are the most friendly 
of neighbors. 

But remember that the temptation back in 1846 was very great. 
Americans were in the Southwest, pushing daily into other Mexican 
territorv (what is now California, Arizona, and New Mexico). It was 



76 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

valuable land. The Southerner in need of more land to raise 
cotton was forbidden to till the soil north and west of Missouri, This 
was free territory and no slaves could be held there. The Southerner 
fii-mly believed he needed slaves. Is it any wonder, then, that he 
pressed our national officials to seek more territory in the Southwest? 

War started by the 'act of Mexico." The superior resources of 
America made it a short war. Mexico was a weak and struggling 
people, and a few brilliant campaigns sufficed to capture all the 
important cities of the country in northern Mexico and California. 
When General Scott took their capital. Mexico City, they gave in 
<nid signed a treaty giving to America what are now the great states 
of California, Arizona, and New Mexico. We paid them $15,000,000, 
the same amount, you remember, that we paid for the Louisiana ter- 
ritory. Perhaps the payment made them feel that it was more of a 
purchase than a conquest. 

Why do you think this Mexican war Avas important ? What were 
the advantages of bringing under American control another great 
region. Refer back to Fig. 14, page 67. The maps will help you 
to see what they were. You will recall that before the Mexican War 
American traders and trappers had penetrated this region. What was 
bound to happen very quickly because of that fact? Do you know 
that the traders and trappers opened the way for the settler! 

In 1853 the present western possessions of the United States were 
completed by the purchase from Mexico of a small tract of land in 
southern Arizona. This is known in history as the Gadsden Purchase. 

To the Teacher: We suggest that as a class exercise 
you assign to individual pupils the task of finding 
out from a school history how we secured each of our 
following possessions : Alaska, Hawaii, Porto Rico, 
the Philippines, the Panama Canal Zone, and the 
Danish West Indies. 

1. Make a brief summary of how the United States acquired its 
present territory? Give (a) the circumstances under which each was 
obtained, and (b) how it hurried forward the westward movement. 

2. Prepare a map for your note-book in which you indicate the 
territorial gains of the United States between 1776 and 1920. 



VTII. LIFE ON THE DIFFERENT FRONTIERS, 1620-1890 

Van you think of a time from 1620 to 1880 when there was not a 
"frontier" in America.' When people did not live in rough cabins — 
isolated, dependent on themselves for their food, water, clothing-, — 
their very lives! No, there was no such time. Massachusetts had its 
frontier from 1600 to 1700; western New York had its frontier until 
Avell after the Revolutionary War against England ; Ohio was almost 
all frontier in the years from 1800 to 1820; the years of 1820 to 
1850 were frontier times in the Mississippi Valley; and the 1850 's and 
1860 's when caravans of prairie schooners lurched along the far West's 
dar.gerous trails were frontier years. 

So it is very important for you to remember that from the time of 
the first Virginia colony at JamestoAvn and the Pilgrims' landing at 
Plymouth, until 1880, the original white "Americans" always looked 
out westward onto a frontier. For 275 years there was always a place 
where you could go west, northwest, or southwest, where there was 
land, land, land, with almost no white people. And this we call the 
' ' frontier. ' ' The Census Bureau at Washington says that the frontier 
is the place where the number of people living in each square mile is 
less than two. Think how lonely it would seem to city people to live in 
a home from which one would have to go a mile in either direction to 
find at least two more people living. In some of our small city blocks 
only 400 feet on a side, several thousand people are living. 

The frontier moved steadily westward, decade by decade, as the 
maps and the stories tell you so clearly. As it crawled along, towns 
and cities and "civilization" follow^ed in its wake. Pittsburg, a fort 
and a trading post in 1760, was a straggling hamlet in 1780, and a vil- 
lage of 500 houses in 1800. But within a generation more it was a 
thriving river-city of shops and steel factories and steamboat docks 
with much of the paraphernalia of modern life. Chicago, in 1834, was 
a trading post on the sandy dunes of southern Lake Michigan. Today, 
less than 100 years later, it totals nearly as many people as were on 
the entire Atlantic Coastal plain in 1790 — almost three million. 

The blackened areas oC Fig. 10 show distinctly how towns and cities 
followed along behind the frontier. 

How THE Time Line Portrays History 

Tlie "time line" of Fig. 16 shows the whole movement in a graphic 
wav. If von have not used time lines before, remember that one inch on 



78 



WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 













o c 



Is 









Sc 



i-i-O^ vO 



en O."^ 9-- 






.ii 5.g- 



o-c 

It 



;: ro c 
Q, O ra 






-CTS 

-t- a, 

C-f. 



o ™ 

1j 



V 

O-TS. 



<« L. 

Pg2 



LIFE ON THE DIFFERENT FRONTIERS, 1620-1890 79 

this particular line stands for about 100 years in time. Notice that the 
items above the time line show the order in which Americans obtained 
and settled the lands from the Atlantic Coast to the Pacific, The items 
below the line show, at approximately the proper dates, the way people 
ti-aveled and transported things. So, above the line you have the 
ac(iuiring and settling of the land ; below, the growth of transportation 
and communication. 

Wasn't it astonishing that the people clung to the Atlantic Coast 
for over a century and a half ? It was nearly a century before even 
the "Back-Country" of the higher lands was settled. Another fifty 
years passed before the Appalachian barrier was crossed. And then, 
seemingly, the flood-gates were broken ! In less than eighty years 
several millions of human beings, land hungry, swept over the remain- 
ing two thousand miles of continent. And as they went they improved 
at a marvelous rate the ways of traveling, and of communicating with 
each other ! Muddy wagon-roads gave way to well-drained stone coach 
roads ; canals were dug through the vallej^s ; railroads connected ham- 
lets, cities, and states ; and men learned how to paddle boats along 
rivers by steam, afterwards by gasoline ; steamships ploAved our great 
lakes, the "pony express" and the "Deadwood stage-coach" were 
supplanted by the Overland Limited and its finely appointed observa- 
tion cars. Men talked over wires and finallj^ over great distances with- 
out wires. It has been a remarkable centuiy of "civilization"! 

Life On All the Frontier Much the Same — 
Simple and Independent 

No matter whether the pioneer was living in central Massachusetts 
in 1700 or in the upland Back Country of Virginia or the Carolinas in 
1700 to 1750; whether he was struggling with the dangers and diffi- 
culties of the Ohio and Mississippi country in 1800, or trying to wrest 
a farm from the wilderness in Wyoming or the Oregon country in 
1850, — life with the pioneers wherever they were was much the same — 
simple, very rough and hardy, and generally dangerous. 

We people of the towns and cities of America today have little 
understanding of how our great-grandfathers lived 70 or 100 years 
ago. You boys and girls who have playgrounds with fine appa- 
ratus or who play on the town streets would have been astonished at the 
* ' play " of a boy or girl on the frontier. Little time for play there was 
for any but the very youngest. And for these, playing had to be done 
close to the cabin home, at least within the clearing ! To wander alone 
in the dense forest or over the rolling hills meant constant danger. 
Passing Indians, singly or in tribes, merely bided their time for a 
favorable chance to attack a cabin, carry off children, or add a young 
scalp to their list of murderous achievements. The undergrowth com- 



80 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

mon in many of the bottom-lands near the rivers harbored the veno- 
mous rattlesnake and copperhead. The anxious mother working- in 
the log cabin home never knew when she must face the agony of a son 
01- husband hovering between life and death from a snake bite, poison- 
ous Indian arrow or tomahawk wound — even broken bones from falling 
trees or from tumbles over steep cliffs. 

Doctors to call in emerg-encies over the telephone, ambulances to 
bear one to the hospital and the skillful operation of the surgeon? 
Not in pioneer days. A far cry indeed from our modern conveniences 
to the lonely cabins — two days' hard horseback-riding to the nearest 
doctor. Only too frequently the doctor, home-trained and dependent 
on practical remedies, could do no more than the frontier mother had 
already done. Rough conditions demanded rough treatment. In order 
to save the lives of their loved ones, women were even compelled to 
turn the crude pioneer knife into a surgeon's instrument and cut out 
from some helpless frontiersman's back a quivering Indian arrow. 
Almost everybody had rheumatism. "Ague" (malarial fever) was 
very common from the swampy bottom-lands which the frontiersman 
persisted in -farming, although he knew that the dangers of disease 
were less on the hills. 

The very games of frontier children showed how much the Indian 
counted in their lives. Much time was spent in learning woodcraft 
and the use of primitive weapons. To be able to judge the turning of 
the tomahawk so as to hit an object with the blade instead of the 
handle was learned only after years of practice. Proud was the 
youngster who could shoot the long heavy rifle of his father, with a 
forked stick in the ground as a prop, it being much too heavy for the 
youth to hold. Wrestling was a favorite sport in all pioneer days, 
and there was much running and jumping in the woods. 

Do you know the bird calls of the winged animals of the forest ? 
The pioneer boy learned them as you learn to spell. It was part of 
his "common school" education to be able to entice a turkey or a 
fawn into reach of his rifle by imitating the calls of their mates. So, 
too, the father learned where the wolf pack was by his imitation of 
the wolf howl. ' ' Stray Indians put themselves in touch again with the 
band by turkey calls in the day time and by owl or wolf notes at night. 
The frontiersman used the same means to trick the Indian band into 
betraying the place of its ambuscade, or to lure the strays, unwitting 
within reach of the knife." 

And what about the homes in those days ? Did people live in apart- 
ment buildings or brick or wooden frame-houses as they do today? 
No, home meant a rude cabin in a clearing — a little log building, gen- 
ei-ally sixteen by twenty feet, heavy logs cut from the forest in making 
the "clearing." and laid on the ground for a floor. Did they have 



LIFE ON THE DIFFERENT FRONTIERS, 1620-1890 



81 



nails and spikes for fastening? No, indeed. Logs had to be notched 
together, the larger ones laid as foundations. Cellars? None at all. 
Floors of Avell-planed and polished oak ? No — puncheons instead, thick 
rough slabs split from great logs, laid down over round cross logs and 
held in place by wooden pins, for the frontiersman's greatest lack 
was metal. 




Doors ? Generally one only, also constructed qf heavy slabs, and 
swung on wooden hinges. Of course they had no glass, so what do 
you think was used for window panes ? Paper I Greased paper. One 
couldn't see through it, but it did let in light. More frequently, in 
earliest pioneer days, no window-panes at all were used. Danger 
from attack was so great that doors were made stout and often swung 
in two sections to guard against some unwelcome stranger. 

Pioneer furniture was like the rest of frontier life — home made, 
and always wooden. The table was a smooth slab on four posts, with 
chairs and three-legged stools to match. Beds? Sometimes merely 
animals' skins and blankets laid on the floor. Crude bedsteads were 
made by laying slabs across sticks raised from the ground by other 
notched sticks. Do you think they had soft mattresses to sleep on? 
Far from it. For a long time, a bed tick made of plain straw was a 
great luxury. 

When the pioneer sat down at the welcome call of "supper" after 
a hard day 's work, did he come to a table laid with linen cloth, shining 
silver, and dainty china? No, he was glad to have been able to find 
time in long winter evenings to whittle out wooden plates, spoons, 
cups, bowls. The cold drink was most frequently taken from a gourd. 
To match the serving dishes went the cooking utensils. A few iron 
utensils, kettles and knives were an absolute necessity. You may well 
imagine that they were taken by the frontiersman on his western trails 
and treasured very carefully. For iron was hard to get. One couldn't 



82 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

go to the hardware store and buy a new tool when an old one gave out 
or was lost. The loss of an iron tool was a calamity on the frontier. 

The First Frontiers — Eastern 
Massachusetts and Virginia, 1620-1700 

Look at Fig. 10, which shows where people live now in America. 
Into what small section of the United States do the most people seem 
to be packed? Is it the West, the South, the central plains? Can 
you imagine that this very section once was the frontier? Yes, as 
late as 1690, even into the early 1700 's, many towns of central and 
eastern Massachusetts were frontier towns — and by an official act of 
the Colonial legislature, they were called that ! In 1694 the legislators 
were so anxious to have people stay in the frontier towns that they 
ordered themi not to leave, even under penalty of imprisonment or of 
having their lands taken away from them ! 

And what were the frontier towns? Not Omaha, Nebraska; nor 
Denver, Colorado ; nor Kansas City, Missouri, Not a bit of it. Listen 
to the list and find them on the map of Massachusetts. Wells, York, 
Kittery, Amesbury, Haverhill, Dunstable, Chelmsford, Groton, Lan- 
caster, Marlborough. The one farthest away from the Atlantic Coast 
was Lancaster — only 39 miles ! And this was the frontier 75 years 
after the first colony had been established on the Massachusetts coast — 
so slowly did the new country get settled. It took about a hundred 
years of fighting the Indians and clearing the forests, to move the 
frontier inward from the coast a distance of 100 miles. This is the 
way Francis Parkman, a noted historian, tells about the Massachu- 
setts frontier in 1704. 

"The exposed frontier of New England was between two and three 
hundi-ed miles long, and consisted of farms and hamlets loosely scat- 
tered through an almost impervious forest. . . . Even in so-called 
villages, the houses were far apart, because, except on the seashore, the 
people lived by farming. Such as were able to do so fenced their 
dwellings with palisades, or built them of solid timber, with loop- 
holes, a projecting upper story like a block house, and sometimes a 
flanker at one or more of the corners. In the more considerable settle- 
ments the largest of these fortified houses was occupied in time of 
danger by armed men and served as a place of refuge for the neigh- 
bors." 



"In 1703-4 ... the General Court of Massachusetts ordered 
five hundred pairs of snowshoes and an equal number of moccasins for 
use in si)ecified counties 'lying Frontier next to the Wilderness.' Con- 
necticut in 1704, after referring to her frontier towns and garrisons, 
ordered that 'said company of English and Indians shall, from time to 



LIFE ON THE DIFFERENT FRONTIERS, 1620-1890 S3 

time at the discretion of their chief commander, range the woods to 
indevour the discovery of an approaching enemy, and in especiall man- 
ner from 'Westfield to Ousatunnuck And for the 

incouragement of our forces gone or going against the enemy, this 
Court will allow out of the publick treasurie the sume of five pounds 
for every mans scalp of the enemy killed in this Colonic.' Massachu- 
setts offered bounties for scalps, varying in amount according to 
whether the scalp was of men, or women and youths, and whether it 
M'as taken by regular forces under pay, volunteers in service, or volun- 
teers without pay."^ * 

Now the Indians must have played a lively part in the life of the 
Puritan Colonists in Massachusetts. (We will learn later why they 
were called Puritans, and how they happened to come to America to 
make their homes in wnld country.) Each little village had its fortifi- 
cations, generally in the meeting-house square. Garrison houses — 
block-houses, they were called — were built of heavy timber, with loop- 
holes out of which the white men could fire upon their red-skinned 
enemies, keeping fairly well protected themselves. Massachusetts his- 
tory is full of stories of Indian massacres in these frontier towns less 
than 50 miles from the coast. Settlers were very frequently taken 
captive by the Indians, forced to live as adopted members of Indian 
tribes; some adopted Indian dress, painted their bodies like Indians, 
and spoke the Indian tongue. 

Here is a petition which the pioneers of the town of Wells sent to 
the legislators at the General Court at Boston in 1689 r 

1. That your Honors will please to send us speedily twent.y-eight 
good brisk men that may be serviceable as a guard to us whilst we 
get in our harvest of hay and corn, (we being unable to defend 
ourselves and to do our work), and also to pursue and destroy the 
enemy as occasion may require. 

2. That these men may be completely furnished with arms, ammuni- 
tion and provision, and that upon the country's account, it being 
a general war. 

Does this sound like the frontier life that you have read about at 
any other time"? In what way is it like the frontier life in Ohio in 
1804, 200 years later? In what way is it unlike it? 

THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY FRONTIER WAS 
STARTED BY TRADERS, TOO 

Do you remember how the frontier in Tennessee and Kentucky in 
1750 to 1780 was first established by the traders — men like James Adair ? 
Well, that is exactly what happened on the Massachusetts frontier a 



^Turner, P. J.: "The Frontier in American History," pageTl. Henry Holt & 
Company, New York, 1921. 

-"Massachusetts Archives," cvii, page 155. Quoted in Turner, op. cit.. pages 
47-48. 



84 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

century before. Trappers and traders went out from the coast towns 
along the Indian trails to establish trade with the Indians. Sometimes 
they, too, became a pai-t of the Indian peoples, made their homes 
permanently with them, and married into their families. These trap- 
pers and traders all over the continent and at all different times, were 
the brave men who helped push the frontier farther and farther west- 
ward until it finally reached the far West of California and Oregon. 
In another pamphlet you will read the story of how the land was 
owned and used on the different frontiers. That is important, but 
just now we must study still other frontiers to see in what respect they 
too are like Massacluisetts was in 1620 to 1700. 

THE VIRGINIA FRONTIER OF 1700 

The Virginia frontier resembled that of other places and times. 
Kead this funny sounding law which the Virginia assembly passed in 
1701. It gives one a feeling that frontier conditions were always much 
the same. 

" 'Provided alwayes,' ran tlie (luaint statute, 'and it is the true 
intent and meaning of this act that for every five hundred acres of land 
to be granted in pursuance of this act there shall be and shall be 
continually kept upon the said land one christian man between sixteen 
and sixty years of age perfect of limb, able and fitt for service who 
shall alsoe be continually provided with a well fixed musquett or 
fuzee, a good pistoll, sharp siraeter, tomahawk and five pounds of good 
clean pistoll powder and twenty pounds of sizable leaden bulletts or 
swan or goose shott to be kept within the fort directed by this act 
besides the powder and shott for his necessary or useful shooting at 
game. Provided also that the said warlike christian man shall have 
his dwelling and continual abode within the space of two hundred 
acres of land to be laid out in a geometrical square or as near that 
figure as conveniency will admit,' etc. Within two years the society 
was required to cause a half acre in the middle of the 'co-habitation' 
to be palisaded Svith good sound pallisadoes at least thirteen foot long 
and six inches diameter in the middle of the length thereof, and set 
double and at least three foot within the ground.' 

"Such in 1701 was the idea of the Virginia tidewater assembly of 
a frontiersman, and of the frontier towns by which the Old Dominion 
should spread her population into the upland South. But the 'war- 
like christian man' who actually came to furnish the firing line for 
Virginia, was destined to be the Scotch-Irishman and the German with 
long rifle in place of 'fuzee" and 'simeter.' and altogether too restless 
to have his continual abode within the space of two hundred acres. 



LIFE OX THE DIFFERENT FRONTIERS. 1620-1890 85 

Nevertheless there are points of resemblance between this idea of 

societies settled about a fortified town and the later 'stations' of 
Kentuckv. ' "^ 



Here is a little story written by "Ihicle Nick Wilson," a well 
known frontiersman annd scout of the Western prairies in the sixties 
and seventies. He lived among the Indians for many years so he can 
tell us just what frontier life was. 

Uncle Nick Wilson's Story of Pioneer Days in 1850- 

I was born in Dlinois in 1842, I crossed the plains by ox team 
and came to Utah in 1850. My parents settled in Grantsville, a pioneer 
village just south of the Great Salt Lake. To protect themselves from 
the Indians, the settlers grouped their houses close together and built 
a high wall all around them. Some of the men would stand guard 
while others worked in the fields. The cattle had to be herded very 
closely during the day, and corralled at night with a strong guard to 
keep them from being stolen. But even with all our watchfulness we 
lost a good many of them. The Indians would steal in and drive our 
hol-ses and cows away and kill them. Sometimes they killed the peo- 
ple, too. 

We built a log school house in the center of our fort, and near it 
we erected a very high pole, u]) which we could run a white flag as a 
signal if the Indians attempted to run off our cattle, or attack the 
town or the men in the fields. In this log schoolhouse two old men 
AAOuld stay, taking turns at watching and giving signals when neces- 
sary, by raising the flag in the daytime, or by beating a drum at night. 
For we had in the schoolhouse a big bass drum to rouse the people, 
and if the Indians made a raid, one of the guards would thump on 
the old thing. 

When the people heard the drum, all the women and children were 
supposed to rush for the schoolhouse and the men would hurry for the 
cow corral or take their places along the wall. Often in the dead hours 
of the night when we were quietly sleeping, we would be startled by 
the booming old drum. Then you would hear the youngsters coming 
and squalling from every direction. You bet I was there, too. Yes, 
sir, many is the time I have run for that old schoolhouse clinging to 
my mother's apron and bawling '4ike sixty"; for we all expected to 
be filled with arrows before we could get there. We could not go 
outside of the wall without endangering our lives, and when we would 
lie down at night we never knew what would happen before morning. 



'Quoted by Turner, op. cit., pages 86-87. 

-This story is reprinted with publishers' permission from "The White Indian 
Boy," by E. N. Wilson and Howard R. Drig-gs. Copyrighted by World Book Co., 
Tonnkers, 1919. 



86 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

The savages that gave us the most trouble were called Gosiutes. 
They lived in the deserts of Utah and Nevada. Many of them had 
been banished into the desert from other tribes because of crimes they 
had committed. .The Gosiutes were a mixed breed of good and bad 
Indians. 

They were always poorly clad. In the summer they went almost 
naked ; but in winter they dressed themselves in robes made by twisting 
and tying rabbit skins together. These robes were generally all they 
had to wear during the day and all they had to sleep in at night. 

They often went hungry, too. The desert had but little food to 
give them. They found some edible roots, the sego, and tintic, which 
is a kind of Indian potato, like the artichoke ; they gathered sun- 
flower and . . . seeds, and a few berries. The pitch pine tree 
gave them pine nuts; and for meat they killed rabbits, prairie dogs, 
mice, lizards, and even snakes. Once in a great while they got a deer 
or an antelope. The poor savages had a cold and hungry time of it; 
we could hardl}' blame them for stealing our cattle and horses to eat. 

Yes, they ate horses, too. That was the reason they had no ponies, 
as did the Bannocks and Shoshones, and other tribes. The Gosiutes 
wandered afoot over the deserts, but this made them great runners. 
It is said that Yarabe, one of these Indians, once won a wager by 
beating the Overland Stage in a race of twenty-five miles over the 
desert. Swift runners like this would slip in and chase away our 
animals, driving them off and killing them. Our men finally captured 
old Umbaginny and some other bad Indians that were making the 
mischief, and made an example of them. 

After this they did not trouble us so much, but the settlements were 
in constant fear and excitement. One incident connected with my 
father shows this. Our herd boys were returning from Stansbury 
Island, in the Great Salt Lake, where many cattle were kept. On their 
way home they met a band of friendly Indians. The boys, in fun, 
proposed that the Indians chase them into town, firing a few shots to 
make it seem like a real attack. The Indians agreed, and the chase 
began. My father saw them coming and grabbed his gun. Before the 
white jokers could stop him and explain, he had shot down the head 
Indian 's horse. It took fifty sacks of flour to pay for their fun. The 
Indians demanded a hundred sacks, but they finally agreed to take half 
that amount and call things square. 

Some of the Indians grew in time to be warm friends with us, and 
when they did become so, they would help protect us from the wild 
Indians. At one time Hai-rison Surveyor, a pioneer of Grantsville, was 
out in the canyon getting wood. ''Captain Jack," a chief of the 
Gosiutes, was with him. Some wild Indians attacked Surveyor and 
Avould have killed him. but "Captain Jack"' sprang to his defense and 



LIFE ON THE DIFFERENT FRONTIERS, 1620-1890 87 

beat back the murderous Indians. The chief had most of his clothes 
torn off and Avas badly bruised in the fight, but he saved his white 
friend. Not all the Gosiutes were savages. Old Tabby, another of 
this tribe, was a friend of my father. How he proved his friendship 
for us I shall tell later. 

A rather amusing thing happened one day to Tabby. He had just 
got a horse through some kind of trade. Like the other Gosiutes, he 
was not a very skillful rider. But he would ride his pony. One day 
this big Indian came galloping along the street towards the blacksmith 
shop. Riley Judd, the blacksmith, who was always up to pranks, saw 
Tabby coming, and just as he galloped up, Riley dropped the horse's 
hoof he was shoeing, threw up his arms and said. 

"Why, how dye do. Tabby!" 

Tabby's pony jumped sidewise. and his rider tumbled off. He 
picked himself up and turned to the laughing men, saying : 

"Ka wino (no good), Riley Judd, too much how dye do." 

Besides our troubles with the Indians, we had to fight the crickets 
and the grasshoppers. These insects swarmed down from the moun- 
tains and devoured every green thing they could find. We had hard 
work to save our crop. It looked as if starvation was coming. The 
men got great log rollers and rolled back and forth. Herds of cattle 
were also driven over the marching crickets to crush them ; rushes were 
piled in their path, and when they crawled into this at night, it would 
be set on fire. But all seemed in vain. Nothing we could do stopped 
the scourge. 

Then the gulls came by the thousands out of the Great Salt Lake. 
They dropped among the crickets and gorged and regorged themselves 
until the foe was checked. No man could pay me money enough to 
kill one of the seabirds. 

After the cricket war the grasshoppers came to plague us. Great 
elouds of them would settle down on our fields. Father saved five 
acres of his grain by giving up the I'est to them. We kept the hoppers 
from settling on this patch by running over and over the field with 
ropes. We used our bed cords to make a rope long enough. 

But it was a starving winter anyway, in spite of all we could do. 
We were a thousand miles from civilization, surrounded by hostile 
Indians. We had very little to eat and next to nothing to wear. It 
was a time of hunger and hardships ; but most of the people managed 
to live through it, and things grew brighter with the spring. 



"GOING WEST- IN THOSE DAYS. 

If one had been out in the open prairie in a certain part of Wis- 
consin in the summer of 1870. he would perhaps have noticed, sil- 



88 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

houetted against the sky on the far horizon, a procession of horse-drawn 
covered wagons, followed by a small herd of cattle. For such a 
caravan was conveying the Kandals from their home in Wisconsin 
all the way to the quarter-section of unbroken land they had pur- 
chased in Iowa. Nor were the Randals the only family who were 
finding their way through the tall, untrodden grass to a home farther 
westward. The Garlands, the Greens, the Bracketts, the Burdicks, 
the Gallaghers, the MacClintocks, were all driven by the pioneer's 
spirit of adventure to break into new ground in the direction of 
the sunset. 

Cheer up, brothers, as we go 
O'er the mountains, westward ho, 
AVhere herds of deer and buffalo 
Furnish the fare. 
This was the song they sang. There is a ballad, too, which many a 
husband and wife sang together in those days, the husband singing 
the first verse, the wife answering with another verse, the husband 
taking a second turn, and the wife again answering. The husband 
would sing: 

Away to Colorado a journey I '11 go. 
For to double my fortune as other men do, 
While here I must labor each day in the field 
And the winter consumes all the summer doth yield. 
The wife would then reply : 

Dear husband, I 've noticed with a sorrowful heart 
That you long have neglected your plow and your cart, 
Your horses, sheep, cattle at random do run, 
And your new Sunday jacket goes every day on. 
Oh, stay on your farm and you'll suffer no loss, 
For the stone that keeps rolling will gather no moss. 
But the husband would insist : 

Oh, wife, let us go; Oh, don't let us wait; 
I long to be there^ and I long to be great. 
While you some fair lady and who knows but I 
May be some rich governor long 'fore I die, 
Whilst here I must labor each day in the field, 
And the winter consumes all the summer doth yield. 
The singing of more verses and many such ballads was the feature 
of many a long evening's entertainment when the neighbors gathered 
into one of the farm-houses. 

With none of the conveniences which we can hardly imagine being 
without — such as railroads, packers, draymen, automobiles, the poor 
wives had to pack up their household goods and trundle along with 



LIFE ON THE DIFFERENT FRONTIERS, 1620-1890 89 

their babies to the unsettled countries where the husbands felt sure 
fortunes awaited them. To the tune of 

Then o'er the hills in legions, boys, 

Fair freedom's star 

Points to the sunset regions, boys, 

Ha, ha, ha-ha! 
the kitchen stove, kettles, beds, and other furniture were loaded into 
the wagons, or, if it was winter, into huge sleighs, for a journey which 
often took many days. ' ' Go West, young man, ' " was the slogan which 
seemed to ring in the ears of all the farmers. 

"West," hoAvever, was always shifting its location. The farther 
the people moved, the farther ''West" became. After Iowa, it was 
Nebraska; after Nebraska, the Dakotas, Idaho, Wyoming, California. 
The Westward Movement finally reached clear across the continent 
to the Pacific Ocean. 

A little girl, whose parents and grandparents moved on to Ne- 
braska when she was a baby in arms, wrote down as a story what her 
parents had told her about their early days there when she was too 
young to remember. There were no houses at that time, and the new- 
comers built their own of sod, or lived in dug-outs in the banks of 
rivers. There were no railroads and no mail deliveries, and no trees 
except along the river banks. The openness of the country made the 
weather much more severe than now. One time the little girl's father 
started with his team of oxen to meet another family of pioneers, 
friends from the old farm, whom he expected on a certain day. It was 
a trip of sixty-four miles and took four days to get there. When he 
was about ten miles from home, a terrible storm came, and he had to 
take shelter where he could. It was a whole week before his wife heard 
anything of him; then, wlien she was almost frantic, and was about to 
start off in search of him, he and his oxen came driving in. The storm 
had cleared, and together they started off to get supplies, leaving the 
little girl, twelve years old, alone. They were not four miles away 
from the house when another storm arose. The oxen will not face a 
storm; they turn around and break everything in sight. The father 
and mother were helpless. Night came, and the end of another day; 
the storm raged and they could not go back. Meanwhile, the little 
girl had used up all her firewood and had no other fuel. She finally 
managed to get to a neighboring dug-out a mile away, and there she 
stayed in safety until her parents returned. 

Many children today hear stories from their fathers and grand- 
fathers of these "going West" expeditions. But, like the Civil War 
veterans which many of them were, the fathers and mothers who had 



90 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

these experiences themselves are becoming fewer and fewer ; and still 
fewer the grandfathers and great-grandfathers who moved West when 
West was almost what we call East today. 

The Westward IMovement started much further back than anyone 
living today can remember. From the time that the Declaration of 
Independence was signed in 1776, people became filled with the spirit 
of adventure that made them want to break into the wilderness and 
unexplored country. From the little colonies formed by the Pilgrims 
along the eastern coast, the settlements spread out to western New 
York, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, Mississippi, 
Alabama, Louisiana, Missouri, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Wiscon- 
sin, Iowa, and gradually pushed on all the way to the Western coast 
from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. 

Sometimes families moved in groups, sometimes singly. They 
traveled in wagons drawn by horses, mules, or oxen ; some rode on 
horseback, some walked. The families were very large in those days, 
and frequently three generations lived together. The men folks 
hunted along the way for game and wild honey, always on the lookout 
for a good location in which to settle. The children kept the cattle 
and extra horses from straying too far away. At night the travelers 
camped along the roadside, near a spring if possible, and cooked their 
food, fed the stock, and made preparations for the next day's journey. 

When the plantation people of the South moved, they carried all 
their tools and work animals with them so that they could set their 
slaves to work in the new home at once. For the slaves, moving was a 
succession of holidays; they enjoyed every new sound and sight by 
day, and sang and danced around the campfire in the evening. 

Travel by river was easier and cheaper than travel by land, but 
it was attended with so much danger that men with families usually 
took the land routes. Whatever the means of travel, the trips were 
full of hardships and danger; the weather was uncertain, the danger 
from exposure great, and food supplies could not be counted on. It 
was veiy hard on the wives and mothers, for besides leaving their homes 
and all that they knew and loved, they had to endure the severe hard- 
ships of starting all over again in a new place, with large families of 
children to protect and care for as they went. The grandfathers and 
great-grandfathers who pioneered westward were strong and brave, for 
the faint-hearted soon turned back if they ever started. 

So, do you see now how, as the people moved westward, the life on 
the frontier was much the same all the way along — whether in 1750 
or in 1880, whether the frontier was in the East, the Middle West, or 
the far West. The people of the Atlantic plain in the early establish- 
ment of the colonies, 1620-1700, lived under the same crude, rough 



LIFE ON THE DIFFERENT FRONTIERS, 1620-1890 01 

conditions as did the Ohio settlers of 1780 to 1810. Those who lum- 
bered slowly across the Rocky Mountains in 1848, fared little or no 
better than did those who broke the Appalachian barrier in 1790. 
Much the same ways of travelling persisted — horses, caravans of great 
covered wagons hauled by oxen, Indians raiding them constantly ; there 
were always dangers from thirst, attacks from wild animals, storms, 
and what not. It seemed that Nature put every obstacle in the path of 
our pioneer moving farther and farther west, constantly trying to 
thwart him in his conquest of land and wealth. But steadily, for 275 
years, he moved onward until finally the American Pioneer — that com- 
posite of twenty nationalities and races — actually filled the continent 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 



IX. HOW AND WHY THE SOUTHERN PLANTER ALSO 
PUSHED WESTWARD 

"Yes, suh, we're woin' to move," said Colonel Thomas Culpepper 
of Culpepper County. Virfjinia. 

"Where are you poin' to ?o?" asked the Colonel's friend, Ma.for 
Dabney. 

"We are goin" West, suh, goin' to settle those new cotton lands of 
Alabama. This land is about wo'n out. My father moved heah in 
1784, that's forty-three yeahs ago. Land planted to cotton yeah after 
yeah does not last long, suh. Last yeah I didn't make a cent. Those 
western lands are new. People out theah raise big' crops, and we Vir- 
ginians can't raise cotton for the same price as those new planters." 

"You know how it is, Major, that tariff of the Northerners hurts 
our crops. My father used to sell his cotton in England especially 
aftah the gin [cotton gin] came into use. He swapped his cotton for 
English goods and made money, but with the tariff' charges I can't 
sell abroad, and these Yankee mill-owners don't pay enough to keep the 
blacks in corn meal and calico, let alone me making any money." 

"Sold your plantation?" inquired the Major. 

"Yes, suh, and we start to move next week." 

' ' How you going out ? ' ' 

"Just the way other people go West. We'll go down the Shen- 
andoah Valley, through the Cumberland Gap, and down the Tennessee 
Rivah to the headwaters of the Alabama. We think now we'll settle 
somewhere in Alabama. The Indians are gone and that country is 
free for the taking." 

" 'Pears to me like a big risk. Colonel," broke in his friend. 

No, suh, yuh know my son went that way ten yeahs ago. He is in 
Alabama now. I have his letters describing the trip. Come up to the 
house, suh, and I'll read you his description." 

Walking up to the house the Major surveyed this wonderful Vir- 
ginia Valley, sighing that one more of his life-long friends had got the 
"Western fever" and was to leave his broad acres and comfortable 
plantation home to rough it in the West. 

Everywhere there were signs of the intended trip, slaves bustling 
about the house to pack the fine upholstered furniture, for the 
Colonel's wife insisted on taking many of the family pieces that her 



WESTWARD MOVEMENT IN THE SOUTH 93 

grandfather and great-grandfather had brought from England in Co- 
lonial times. Huge wagons were being carefully loaded with all the 
things necessary for the long and wearying journey. 

The Colonel went to a half -packed trunk on the porch and drew 
out a packet of tattered letters. Evidently they had been read and re- 
read. "Here they are, suh, they are real history. Some day Amer- 
icans will write the history of the Westward Movement, for it is the 
Americans who are taking up the West that will make our country 
great. He began to read : 

"Sept. 18, 1817. 
* ' Dear Father : 

"We reached Cumberland Gap last night and are camping here 
with about fifty families. It is a great sight — the broad valley lying 
against the blue mountains with the sharp notch through which we 
can pass to the other side. We are traveling with a family from 
Hagerstown, Maryland, but there are Yankees here from Boston and 
Worcester, there are Germans from Lancaster, and Scotch-Irish from 
nearly every part of the country. 

"Most of them are turning north to go into the new lands of Indi- 
ana and Illinois, but the Randolphs from Maryland are on the way to 
join relatives in Alabama and so we are traveling with them. 

"Traveling is slow, some days we make ten miles and some days 
only three, but the trail is well marked out. Settlers here say that 
thousands of people pass through the Gap every year. Here is our 
daily schedule. Up at 5.30. Arouse the slaves to get breakfast ; that 
meal ready at 6.30; tents and tools packed, horses hitched to wagons 
and ready to move at 7.30 ; travel until 11.30, dinner at 12.30, rest 
until 2.30. Travel again until about 6 o'clock or until we find a good 
place to camp, supper about 6.30 or 7 o'clock. Bed at 9 or 9.30. 

"We have been fortunate thus far in finding deserted cabins to 
sleep in at night ; in some places in the Valley the settlers have taken 
us in. 

' ' The slaves are happy, except Dinah ; she moans because she had 
to leave Vii'ginia. 

"We have had little rains and only one breakdown. That was 
easilv mended. We start to follow the Tennessee River tomorrow." 



"Here is another letter," said the Colonel, "written after they 
had reached Alabama." 

"October 15, 1817. 
' ' Dear Father : 

"Well we have settled on a new plantation. It is wonderful land, 
Dad. We got here two months ago, the trip down the Tennessee was 



94 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

beautiful. The Indians in northern Alabama have been moved to In- 
dian territory so there was no trouble with them. We made a flat 
boat when we reached the Alabama and put our things on it. Two 
months from the daj^ we started we found our new home in Jefferson 
County. The Randolphs decided to stay five miles down the river. 
The slaves are happy and contented and are at work planting our 
first crop. 

"The people here have been fine, nearly all of them are Virginians 
or are from the Carolinas and Georgia. They have been very cordial, 
the Marions from Georgia have 10,000 acres above us, and Louise and 
I are staying with them until the house is done." 



"You see, suh, " continued the Colonel as he put the letters away, 
"it is not such a hard trip arid in that land I will find good soil and 
an easy market. Jim markets his cotton at Mobile." 

"That's right, Colonel. I hope it'll go fine with you. I've got to 
go back to the village." 



See if you can trace on the relief map of Fig. 15 the route that 
Jim Culpepper took from Virginia to Alabama. Name at least two 
other routes by which Southerners could easily ' ' go West. ' ' 

W^hich one of the following reasons suggests why Southerners 
went West? 

To see the country. 

For a summer's vacation. 

Because their land was worn out. 

To prevent the Northerners from taking all the land. 

Because the Atlantic coastal plain was getting too crowded. 



What Effect Would Events Described in the 

Next Account Have On the Westward Movement 

of Southern Planters? 

Do you know what the chief industry of the southern part of our 
country has always been? Is it manufacturing of shoes? of iron and 
steel goods? Is it meat-packing? manufacturing of flour or wheat? 
corn raising? the making of automobiles? the carrying on of great 
banking establishments ? 

No, those are the chief things people do in the northeastern, central 
and western parts of America. But in the South, "Cotton is King." 
Southerners do raise wheat and corn and vegetables, but largely for 
their own tables — not in great quantities for distant markets. They 



WESTWARD MOVEMENT IN THE SOUTH 95 

have fine orchards, too, and ship fruits from certain centers. Near 
Birmingham, Alabama, there are great iron and coal mines, and the 
city itself has grown large because of its steel factories. But these 
are all small industries, in the South, as compared with tobacco and 
cotton-raising. 

Why has our South always been the cotton center of the world? 
Chiefly because of its climate and rainfall. Cotton can be grown best 
in regions which for about 200 days of the year have no frost. This is 
true of our Southern States. Cotton also needs dry atmosphere when 
plowing and planting are done in April and May, and copious rains in 
the summer months. Our Southern States have such rains. In the 
early autumn less rain is needed when the cotton plant is maturing and 
"picking-time" comes; and again, in the South the rains are less 
frequent at that time. Finally, cotton-picking has always been done 
mostly by hand. That takes many laborers — people who can stand the 
heat of the warmer climates. And from the beginning of our nation, 
the South has had this labor in the negroes. We cannot stop here to 
tell when and how the negroes came to the country and all the serious 
things that have happened because they did come. Let us simply 
remember that from 1619, when the first negro slaves were brought 
from Africa and sold to Southern planters, until 1863, the South de- 
pended on the negroes for the labor of picking and handling the 
cotton. 

Why the Cotton Business Grew Fast After 1800 

Until 1793 the cotton business was very small. There were two 
reasons for this. One was that the cotton seeds had to be picked from 
the cotton by hand. It was very slow work. A skilled slave could pick 
not more than three pounds a day. The second reason was that yarn 
had to be spun from the cotton and cloth had to be woven from the 
yarn, all by hand. No machinery run by power was used in the days 
of the 1700 's. So you see people didn't need much cotton because 
they used it up so slowly. 

But about the time that the westward movement began two things 
happened that changed the whole cotton business. First, Eli Whitney, 
a Connecticut Yankee who was in the South on a visit, invented a 
machine that would pick the seeds from the cotton at the rate of more 
than 1000 pounds a day. Do you see what this meant to the labor con- 
nected with cotton? As much cotton could be cleaned now by one 
negro slave in one day with the machine, as by 300 negroes in the same 
length of time before. What effect do you think this had on the need 
for slave labor? More important for us just now though is this ques- 
tion : What effect did the invention of the machine have on the South- 
ern planters' need for land? Do you think the fact that the cotton 



96 



WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 



could be cleaned more quickly and easily made a greater demand for 
it! Or, do you imagine that when the cotton-gin came into use, the 
plantation owner found that he had more slaves than he needed to 
do the work and wanted to sell some of them ? 

Instead of having too many slaves, strangely enough, the planter 
found that he needed still more. Why ? Why the demand for cotton 
suddenly increased and became so great that the planter did not begin 
to have enough to go around. He needed not only more slaves but more 
land, and he needed both very badly. 

Now what was the reason for this sudden increase hi demand? 
Well, along about the time that the cotton-gin was invented, other 
kinds of machines were invented. Among them were machines for 
spinning yarn and weaving cloth. As a consequence people began 
doing these slow hand-jobs by machine. The work went much faster, 
and it was cheaper, so that they could have more cotton material for 



The cotton gin made it jDOSsible to 
produce cotton with less labor and in 
less time. 



Since it could therefore be produced 
more cheaply it became a more profit- 
able business. 



Did not need so many slaves to produce same 
amount of cotton, because machine saved hand- 
labor. 



Machines for spinning yarn 
were invented. 



Machines for weaving cloth 
were invented. 



The invention of spinning and weaving ma- 
chines created a greater demand for cotton be- 
cause the finished product could be purchased 
in larger amounts. 



But cotton exhausts the soil 
quickly. Therefore more land 
was needed in order to pro- 
duce more cotton. 



More and more slaves were 
needed to till the fields and 
operate tlie ginning machines. 



How were they going to get more land? 



WESTWARD MOVEMENT IN THE SOUTH 97 

less money than they had before. In the next pamphlet you will see 
how the hand-spinning was done and you'll read the interesting story 
of the way machine-Aveaving came into use. 

Meanwhile the introduction of these machines into the cotton indus- 
try brought about endless changes. The chart on page 96 shows a chain 
of things that happened. fStudy it carefully. 

To get more land — that soon became the great problem of the 
planters, for continuous cotton-raising was fast wearing out the soil. 
Each year the land was yielding less cotton to the acre. Why was 
this so? Simply because the planters had not learned that every crop 
planted takes certain important chemicals out of the soil, and that 
these chemicals have to be put back in some way or the soil will wear 
out completely. One way to put them back, as you probably know, 
is to fertilize the land. But this they knew little about in the early 
1800 's. Another way is to change the*crop year by year — "rotating" 
the crops, as it is called — that is, plant one kind of crop one year 
and another kind the next so that the same acres do not have the 
same crop two years in succession. But this was another thing our 
farmers had not learned by the early 1800 's. 

Do you know what they did do? Instead of improving the soil 
tliey planted cotton year after year on all the land, let the soil wear 
out, and then when the time came that they couldn't make a living 
from it any longer, they sold out and moved West. That is what 
Colonel Culpepper of the story was about to do. In another pamphlet 
you will read how wasteful the American people have been of their 
great natural resources— their farm land, their forests, their minerals, 
and their water-power. This account of the cotton industry gives 
you a slight notion of it. 

Well, as a result of all this, in the years between 1790 and 1840 
thousands of wagon caravans toiled down the great north and south 
valleys of the Appalachians, and through the passes and gaps of the 
niountain barriers. The letters of Colonel Culpepper's son are descrip- 
tive of a good many journeys made by the Southern planters. The 
lands west of the southern mountains from Tennessee to Florida began 
to fill up with plantations. Slaves brought up in Virginia and Caro- 
lina cotton fields swarmed the richer acres of Mississippi and Alabama. 
Between 1796 and 1845 eight new southern states were added to the 
Union. Here is the list: 

Tennessee— 1796 Missouri— 1821 

Louisiana — 1812 Arkansas — 1836 

Mississippi— 1817 Florida- 1845 

Alabama— 1819 Texas— 1845 

When you realize that at least 60,000 people had to be living 
within a territory before it was permitted to enter the Union as a 



98 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

"state," you will see how clearly the admission of these states shoMS 
the filling in of the new South, beyond the mountains. 

Now while these new "cotton" states were being settled, the old 
ones were dwindling in importance in the cotton business. Study 
Table I. North Carolina actually raised less cotton in 1834 than in 
1821 ; Virginia also ; South Carolina, too. On the other hand, Louisi- 
ana, one of the new "cotton" states, raised six times as much; Missis- 
sippi more than eight times as much; Alabama four times as much. 

Table I shows how the new cotton region in the Southwest replaced 
the old cotton region of the South Atlantic Plain. 

Table I.i 

Number of Pounds Produced. 
* 
OI.D COTTON REGION 

South Carolina 20,000,000 50,000,000 65,500,000 

Georgia 10,000,000 45,000,000 75,000,000 

Virginia 5,000,000 12,000,000 10,000,000 

North Carolina 4,000,000 10,000,000 9,500,000 

Total 30,000.000 117.000,000 160.000,000 

NEW COTTON REGION 

Temies.see 1,000,000 20,000,000 45,000,000 

Louisiana 10,000,000 62,000,000 

Mississippi 10,000,000 85,000,000 

Alabama 20,000,000 85,000,000 

Florida 20,000,000 

Arkansas 500,000 

• 

Total 1,000,000 60,000,000 297,500,000 

Notice by the states listed under the "New Cotton Region" in 
Table I how what was called the "Southwest" rapidly moved farther 
west until the "Southwest territory" of 1845 touched the Pacific 
Coast. 

Make a summary for your note-book in which you describe how 
and why the Southern planters settled the southern Mississippi Valley. 

How THE Westward Movements of the Northerner and the 
Southerner Met in the Mississippi Valley 

Turn to Fig. 10, page 60, and let us review the movement of our 
people westward. In 1820 where were the western-most sections of 
settlement? Which routes had the northern pioneers followed into 
the Mississippi Valley ? Trace them on the wall map. 

'Based on MacGregor, "Commercial Statistics," pa&e 462. Quoted by F J 
NatuTr Se"rios)°^Ch XIII '^'"''"^'"'^ Forces in American History" (American 



WESTWARD MOVEMENT IN THE SOUTH 99 

Trace the routes of the Southern frontiersmen. In what parts of 
the country do you think the Northerners and the Southerners would 
meet ? 

From 1820 to 1860 was one of the most critical periods in the life 
of our people. A great conflict developed between the North and the 
South over the new lands of the West and the Southwest, and over 
the question of slavery. We cannot study that conflict very fully 
now. However, because of the very important way in which it relates 
to the Western settlement you should learn something about the strug- 
gle at this time. 

In any school history of the United States look up the causes of 
the Civil War under such headings as Slavery, Missouri Compromise, 
Compromise of 1850, and Civil War. Make some notes from your 
reading so that you can answer the following questions : 

1. Why did the Southerners feel that they needed negro slaves? 

2. Why did the Northerners believe that slavery was unnecessary ? 

3. For many years each section conceded some disputed points 

to the other. What were the points that were conceded in 
the folloAving instances? 

(a) In 1820 — The Missouri Compromise. 

(b) In 1850— The Compromise of 1850. 

(c) In 1854— The Kansas-Nebraska Bill. 

4. How and why was slavery connected with the Westward More- 

ment ? 

5. About what time did the dispute between the North and the 

South over the holding of negro slaves become very serious 1 

6. Find out what each one of these men believed about negro 

slavery, and be able to tell what parts any four of them 
plaj^ed in the great dispute over it : 
(a) Henry Clay, (b) John Calhoun, (c) Daniel Webster (d) 
Stephen A. Douglas, (e) Abraham Lincoln, (f) William 
Lloyd Garrison, (g) John Brown, (h) Robert E. Lee, (i) 
Ulysses S. Grant, and (j) James Buchanan. 

7. Why did the North and South finally go to war over this 

question 1 

8. Why was the North able to conquer the South? 

9. How did it settle the slavery question? 

10. See if you can find out how the war affected the Westward 

Movement. (Look up the Homestead Act of 1862 in some 
history book.) 



X. THE LAST LAP OF THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 

GOLD IN CALIFORNIA — FARMS IN OREGON 

A remarkable century of conquering a vast and rugged continent 
was the first hundred yeai's of America's life as a nation. Our 
people made a slow start in taking the land of the West; they clung 
to the seaboard for a liundred and sixty or seventy years. But when 
once they recognized that they were to be an independent nation thej^ 
carried out swiftly what is probably the greatest movement of a large 
people the world has ever known. It was not mere emigration — it was 
expansion. People moved their homes permanently. They settled on 
the land and developed it; they were not just wanderers. 

Now by 1850 the filling in of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys 
was complete. The Southern planters had exhausted the soil of the 
eastern slope of the mountains, and by 1850 thej^ had quite fully 
established the new borders of civilization along the southern region 
of the Mississippi River. But by 1850 the great West was still a vast 
prairie, chiefly the home of Indians and full of wild life. To cross 
the Appalachians and float down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers was 
one thing; to undertake the terrible trip up the Platte and the Mis- 
souri Valley over the Rockies and Sierra Nevadas was quite another. 
The first trip might take one or two months, with half of it easy 
travelling. But the far AVestern trip — that was three or four months 
of w^earisome toil and danger. 

It took the stoutest hearts to begin the trip. Supreme endurance 
and courage were required to carry it out to the end. The relief map 
of Fig. 15 shows the lay of the land. If the Appalachians were a 
' ' barrier, ' ' what do you think the Rockies would be, with the distance 
twice as great, the mountains very much higher, and the dangers and 
hardships both more perilous and more constant? 

A pretty big reward would have to be at such a journey's end to 
entice the settlers of the Mississippi Valley to go on and on so far 
even though they did have the westward fever. But through the 
forties reports kept coming back that immense quantities of fine farm 
land were to be found in the Oregon country, and gradually people 
began to be tempted, some of them finally "pulling up stakes" and 
embarking on the long last lap of the westward movement to the 
Pacific Coast. 

The trail had already been blazed for them. Forty years earlier 
(1804-1806) Lewis and Clark had explored the territory as shown in 



WESTWARD MOVEMENT IN THE SOUTH 



M 



Fig. 15, Since that time frontiersmen had slowly worn through the 
Oregon Trail itself, starting at Independence, Missouri, near where 
Kansas City is now. Although this was a more direct route than 
Lewis and Clark had followed, it was a more arduous one. At Fort 





Hall (see the dividing point on Fig. 15) the California Trail branched 
oif southward toward the Golden Gate, the harbor and bay where the 
great city of San Francisco stands today. A third trail was cut 

^Reproduced with permission of World Book Company from "The WHiite 
Indian Boy," by Wilson and Driggs. pag:e 114. 



102 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

through over hundreds of miles of desert waste land. This was the 
Santa Fe Trail. And still another branch, indicated on your map, 
was the Gila Trail. 

Although the trails were marked out, the rewards at the other ends 
were not great enough to cause large numbers to undertake the settling 
of the distant country. Not until 1849 ! And then thousands of people 
crowded along the Oregon and California Trails, where only tens had 
gone before. "California" was on every tongue, and people every- 
where fairly ached to get started. Neither distance nor hardship 
■were strong enough to keep them back then. And what was it that made 
the sudden rush for the far West ? Wh^^ a magic word had been 
whispered along the mountain valleys and over the plains. Gold ! 
Gold had been discovered in California, and people were getting rich 
in a month ! 

In a shovel of dust one day some men had seen glimmering par- 
ticles. They were curious, excited, examined them closely, and found 
that they were gold. Today such news would spread from coast to 
coast and continent to continent like wildfire — in a day's time — but in 
those days it had to spread by word of mouth instead of by wires, and 
it took many months to get way back to the big river valleys. But 
when the word reached the Middle Westerners, they poured and 
surged from their homes toward the land of gold as though a great 
flood tide had driven them from behind. It M-as our forefathers of 
seventy years ago that made this journey. Many of them got very 
rich. Perhaps your grandfather was one of these men. How lucky 
for you if he was, for he would delight in telling you all the details 
of the trip. It would seem very strange and interesting to you now 
when you know all about our trains aiul Pullman cars, and the great 
ease with which we can make the trip, as compared with the trials of 
travel back in 1849. The forty-niners can tell real stories about their 
experiences with Indians and about cyclones and snow-storms, and 
the hunger and thirst that they suffered. 

Here is a part of a long, quiet conversation between two white- 
haired old men in front of a fireplace one evening. 

"Well, we got to Independence and found that a party of 45 
wagons and about 200 people were to start the next Monday. Most 
of them were bound for the Williamette Valley in Oregon to farm, but 
a few were talking of prospecting for gold out in California." 

"Why, that is where Grandfather Williams settled in 1843," broke 
in the other. "I was born out there in Oregon, at Portland." 

"Probably he took the same route that my father did," replied the 
first, "he went over the Oregon Trail. Well, my pardner and I 
found that the party were willing to let us go along. There was an 
Indiana pioneer. Ephriam Reed, selected to be captain of the party. 



TO CALIFORNIA AND OREGON 



103 



and Tom Spiirgeon, Jack Delano, Jacob Sanderson, and Carl Mason- — 
guess you've heard me speak of some of them — were appointed lieu- 
tenants of the four caravans. The camp that night before we started 
was a great sight. Each family had one of the great canvas-topped 
prairie schooners, and each contained its prized possessions. One 




Oil the trail in the early days^ 



woman had an oak bureau tliat she had carried on about six trips and 
wouldn't part with it now for all the land in Oregon or gold in Cali- 
fornia. Another woman had the old first cradle used by her family 
in Lancaster, Massachusetts, where they had settled in 1652. It had 
crossed the Appalachian Mountains with them, been carried up to Wis- 
consin, to Indiana, and Iowa, and was on its way to Oregon, sure-pop ! 
I remember a wagon bound for the gold country that was packed with 
a queer-looking mining outfit, containing a windmill among other 
things — an enormous affair. About half the schooners were hauled by 
horses and the other half by oxen. Most all of them had cattle along. 
There were large families, too, and grandmothers and babies galore. 

"Ephriam Reed called a meeting and explained his plan of traveL 
He said it was the same as the one used by the old 'waggoners' that 
followed the Santa Fe Trail and traded with the Mexicans. The 
wagons were to travel close together in four parallel columns, each 
one to be in charge of a lieutenant. Certain of the men were to ride 
on horseback a few miles ahead to search out the country for water, 
bad-going, and hostile Indians. The cattle were to be driven along 
with the wagons by the young men and boys of the party, and at night 
the wagons were to be drawn up to form a hollow square or corral 
for the cattle and oxen. The horses were to be hitched to stakes. 
Eight men were to stand guard in turns during the night. The custom 



iReproduced with permission of AVorld Book Company from "Tlie White 
Indian Boy," by E. N. Wilson and Hoyard R. Dri&gs. page 1. 



104 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

of the plains and the trails to the Pacific required this guard-duty. 
It was really a law. and unless sickness prevented, every one had to 
take his turn. 

"Lots were drawn for places in the four wagon trains, and each 
wagon had to keep in its place. Naturally everyone wanted front places, 
to escape the dust, but the lot was the law. My pardner and I — poor 
fellow, he made lots of money, but was killed before he had a chance 
to enjoy it — we were assigned the job of driving cattle. A family bj" 
the name of Howard took us in with them, and we bought our share 
of their supplies before we started. But — I guess I'm tiring you out 
talking so much. My mind went back to it all tonight because my 
grandson's leaving for California tomorrow, and I was thinking how 
glad I was that a train will bring him back in about three days when 
he gets ready to come." 

"I was enjoying your talk, old friend, and I hope you'll finish, for 
1 never heard anyone who had actually taken that trip tell about it. 
Won 't you go right on, and don 't leave out any of the exciting times 
with the Indians." 

"Well, if you say so, but you must stop me when you've had 
enough.'' 

"Where did I leave off? Oh, yes, I mustn't forget Sam Brinton. 
He was like my wife when she's going to have company. She goes 
out to the housekeeper and makes her listen while she names off all the 
things she can think of and asks her if she's got them. Then she 
goes through the list again. Sam Brinton went around to each wagon 
two or three times and asked, 'Is your wagon ready? Well, have 
you got spare bolts, yokes, tires, axles, extra shoes for the stock, 
enough blankets to keep you warm?' When he was told 'Yes,' he 
would say, 'Are yuh dead sure, 'cause I've ben over this trail before 
and it takes a hull lot fer a six months' journey. Things happen, 
y' know. Wagons break down, supplies give out, and you can't buy 
no seed for your crop in Oregon. The fellows that go to California 
won 't eat gold right away, either. ' Sam was a great caretaker. When 
Reed and his lieutenants inspected the equipment next day, they 
ordered the men to purchase everything that Sam recommended. 

"On May 23, 1849, Ave started. The bugler called us at daybreak, 
and within an hour we were on our way, some to Oregon and some to 
California. The grassland over which we travelled up the Platte 
Valley urged us on to the West. We soon found that we couldn't keep 
the wagons in columns. Some took an independent stand, and part of 
the wagons travelled faster than the others could. At the end of the 
first day we were twelve miles Avest of Westport, and at six o'clock 
Ave halted and made camp. While the corral was being formed, the 
cattle and oxen driven in, the horses tied bv the men, the women 



TO CALIFORNIA AND OREGON 



105 



cooked the suppei". I shall never forget that first evening. People 
with a far-away-from-home look said to each other half-sadly and 
half-questioningly, "Well, we're on our way." "Yes," would be the 
onlv answer. There was no turning back then, and weeks of hard 






travel lay ahead, with nothing but uncertainty at the end of the 
journey. But they seemed to decide with one accord that the first night 
was a bad time to be depressed, and very soon there was a cheeriness 
that increased as the evening went on. The children thought it was 



'Reproduced with permission 
Indian Boy," page 72. 



)f World Book Company from "The White 



106 



WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 



a great picnic, and when one of them said so, Sam Brinton drawled 
out, "You won't think it no picnic when we get up into the mountains, 
young feller. See that you don't slide down the wrong one!" But 
you should have heard Sam sing and recite rhymes. No one could be 
long-faced a great while with him around. His favorite song was 
"Susannah," and he sang verse after verse. 

ril scrape the mountains clean, old girl. 

I'll di-ain the rivers dry. 

1 "m off for California, Susannah, don 't you cry. 

Oh, Susannah, don't you cry for me, 

I 'm off to California with my wash bowl on my knee ! 
The children would ask for more 
and moi-e, and he seemed to know any 
number of verses, all ending the same 
way, "with my wash bowl on my 
knee." He recited rhymes by the 
dozen, and made everyone feel young 
and happy, and by the time we went 
to sleep each night we were excited 
anew about the great adventure to the 
land of gold! 

"But the days were hard. After 
Fort Laramie was reached and we en- 
tered the foothills of the Rockies, no- 
body said ' picnic. ' The oxen began to 
topple over and die, the cattle strayed 
off, wagons broke down and halted the 
caravan. We didn't dare leave any 
part of the group behind because of 
the Indians; two weeks out from 
home we came upon evidences that a 
whole party had been wiped out by 
them. Burned wagons, mules with 
arrows stuck in them, and the wreck- 
age of a small train was all that was 
left to tell the tale. 

' ' The weeks wore on through June, July, and early August, 
days we made fifteen or eighteen miles; other days we M^ere lucky to 
put five miles behind us. We passed through the buffalo country of 
the Platte River region. My, but it was a great sight — there were 
buffalo in millions in that Platte basin. We didn't suffer for meat 
while we were around there, I can tell you. Once we were held up 
nearly a half day by a buffalo herd passing in front of our caravan. 




An Indian of the Pierced 
Nose tribe.^ See top of page 31. 

Some 



iFrom "The White Indian Boy," by Wilson and Driffgs. 
The World Book Company, Yonkers. 



Copyrighted by 



TO CALIFORNIA AND OREGON 107 

"No, we didn't have much trouble with the Indians. Once we 
thought we were going to when one of our fellows refused to give an 
Indian a horse he wanted in trade for some furs. But it ended by 
our man shooting him dead. Luckily we got through South Pass and 
away from his tribe, though we got sight of Indians every few days 
at some distance away from us. At that time they wanted horses, and 
they didn't attack parties much for any reason except to steal them. 
We didn 't have enough horses to attract them. 

"But there were enough trials and dangers without the Indians. 
Along the road we would frequently come upon dead cattle or horses, 
discarded furniture of all kinds — old bureaus, rocking chairs, tables, 
and here and there fresh earth with a rude cross of wood to mark a 
burial place. Many were the children who died on these long trails. 
We had some heart-breaking little episodes in our own camp. One 
little golden-haired girl that my pardner and I used to have for a play- 
mate — it takes me back more than anything else. My pardner fell in 
love with her mother, and everyone loved them both. Wherever they 
were there was happiness, — but they were frail — like delicate roses 
whose petals blow away and are gone. Out on the trail there are two 
white crosses where we laid them. 

"From that time on, everything seemed to be changed. Perhaps 
we noticed it more because our own spirits had fallen so low, but people 
grew more tired and cross. Quarrels broke out over places in the 
line or choice grass for cattle. More and more difficult did it become 
for Reed to keep peace. The songs in the evenings were sometimes 
omitted altogether, especially at camps where water and wood were 
scarce. Wagons began falling apart, and several had to be abandoned 
entirel}' and families had to double up. 

"My pardner and I stuck with the Howards and we certainly 
earned our way, because the Howard boys were lazy and paid little 
attention to the cattle. The old rifles that we carried got pretty heavy, 
but we used them occasionally to kill a deer or a buffalo for meat." 

"How about grass, old friend? Was there much grass over the 
prairies?" broke in the other old gentleman, who seemed to be ab- 
sorbed in the story. 

"Why, the soil got sandy, and was pretty thin for long stretches, 
but the meanest thing we struck was just before we got to Fort Hall. 
Some selfish people who wanted to have a little more time to get all 
the gold in California burned the grass for whole miles behind them, 
and we had some frightful days to live through until we struck grass 
land again. We learned later that some Indians had taken care that 
the too eager party didn 't get to the gold fields at all ! 

"At Fort Hall we stayed three days; then the party split, some 
for the Oregon country, and the others for -California. Many who had 



108 , WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

started for Oregon changed their minds when they heard the fresh 
vollej' of reports at Fort Hall about the gold discoveries. 

"It was late in August when we started along the Humboldt River 
and our final lap that our real trouble began. There was little water 
on the desert and family after family lost cattle. Then the scurvy and 
cholera came, and in one week we lost three out of our small party of 
forty. Every mile from then on wagons and other equipment were 
left on the desert. 

"How my pardner and 1 thanked our lucky stars that we were 
tiavelling light. All we had with us was our rifles, a small bundle of 
clothes, and a little pack of food that we had bought at Fort Hall 
when we left the Howards. It seemed as though we would never get 
through the desert. Fi)ially we crossed the Sierras, and by late Octo- 
ber reached Sutters Mill. Fifteen of our party had died, and the rest 
of us were worn out, sick, and almost penniless when we reached the 
fort. I had started out Avith $300, I remember, and had $40 left to 
s1art life as a miner. 

"Well, that's the story. Thanks for listening — it was good to go 
over it all again." 

"Oh, no!" exclaimed the other. "Gold is at the end of that story. 
Did you make your pile ? " 

"Yes, a rather small fortune — about tAventy-five thousand dollars. 
Of course when we reached there the choice diggings were gone, and 
we had to go up into the mountains and dig for six months before we 
struck the right colored dust. It was hard work digging all day. 
Sometimes we would get ten dollars' worth, and lucky ones would net 
us fifty or seventy-five. Do you see the time of night it is?" 

"Well, it's been a delightful evening. Now I can boast to my 
friends that I know an honest to goodness forty-niner. I never quite 
realized how great this trip you made was before." 



To the Teacher: In connection with this 
we suggest the following books which we believe you 
will find very interesting : 

Hough, Emerson: The Covered Wagon. D. Ap- 
pleton & Co., New York, 1922. 

Hough, Emerson : The Passing of the Frontier. Yale 
University Press, New Haven, 1918. 

Semple, Ellen : American History and Its Geo- 
graphic Conditions. Houghton-Mifflin Co., Boston, 
1903. 

White, Stewart E. : The FoHij-Niners. Yale Uni- 
versity Press, New Haven, 1918. 

The Covered Wagon is a book that you can recom- 
mend to your pupils to read, and they will enjoy it. 
It is from such stories, and first-hand accounts, that 
we have sifted the eonvei'sation of the last few pages. 



TO CALIFORNIA AND OREGON 109 

You have now read several stories of the Westward Movement 
which take in the early settlements along the Atlantic Coast, in the 
Mississippi and Ohio valleys, along the Southern coast states, and 
followed the pioneers way out to the Pacific Coast. 

1. AVhat were the chief ways that these pioneers travelled over 
the far western trails a hundred years ago? 

2. Name several ways that people travel to Oregon today. 

8. Tell briefly all you can find about what happened when gold 
was discovered in California. 

4. The discovery of gold had several important effects on the 
settlement and development of the Pacific Coast. See if you can find 
out what at least tAvo of them were. Look in the index of your school 
history under "Slavery," "Compromise of 1850," "California Trans- 
continental Railroad." Be ready to report on your study to the class. 

5. What v.ere the principal routes of travel to the Pacific Coast 
a hundred years ago? Be able to trace each one on the wall map. 

6. In this period there were a lot of interesting pioneers of the 
far West. See iL" you can find out something about some of these 
men : Kit Carson. Buffalo Bill, Fremont, Lewis and Clark, Zebulon 
Pike, Marcus Whitman, John Jacob Astor. 

7. See if you can find out something about one of these topics 
so as to tell your class: The Mormon's trip and settlement in Utah, 
California in 1848 and 1849, Oregon before 1850, the Vigilantes in 
California. 

8. Ask j-our father and mother about your own family history. 
See if you can get any interesting stories from your OAvn family of 
pioneer life and travel to tell to the class. 



XI. THE PEOPLE WHO SETTLED THE WEST 

NATIVE *' AMERICANS" AND IMMIGRANTS AS PIONEERS 

The story of the Westward Movement is complete at last. Doubt- 
less a very important question concerning it is unanswered in your 
mind. Who were the people who accomplished this marvellous feat 
of turning a wilderness into a modern nation of cities, factories, trans- 
portation systems, schools, newspapers, and what not — all within the 
space of a century? Of what races and nationalities w^as the stock? 
Was it native or immigrant? How long had it been here in America? 

Wart-ionalitifS - WurebsF- Percent 
English 2,605,699 8Z.1 

Scotch 221,562 7.0 H 

German r76,407 5.6 ■ 

Dutch 78,359 2.5 1 

Irish 61,534 1.9 1 

French 17,619 0.6 1 

All Others 10.664 0.3 1 

Total 3,172,444 100.0 

This figure show.s the nationalities that made up our 
population in 1790. More than four-fifths of all the people 
were English. 

Fig. 17 

Figs. 17 and 18 contrast the number and make-up of our people 
in 1790 and 1922. Study them carefully. They will enable you to 
answer these questions : 

1. What striking changes have come about since 1790 in the 
nationalities represented in our population? 

2. What was the chief American stock in 1790? What country 
sent the most immigrants in 1921 ? 



NATIVES AND IMMIGRANTS 



111 



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112 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

3. From what parts of the world do most of our new people come? 
Of course the real native "Americans" were the Indians. This has 
been told about in our story of the "Red Man's Continent." But, by 
1790 three million white people were established here with probably 
only about half a million red men scattered over the rest of the coun- 
try. It is interesting to know that there were less than 300,000 
Indians living- in the United States in 1910. In three hundred years, 
1620-1920, while the white man has grown from a few score to over 
a hundred million, the Indian has neither multiplied nor died off. 
He has simply- kept the same in numbers. By 1790, descendants of the 
British made up over 80 per cent of all "Americans." 

By the way, do you know why our continent — and especially our 
country since the World War. 1914-18, is called America? It is a 
rather interesting stoi-y. Although Columbus discovered Western land 
first, his name was not given to the Western hemisphere. Instead it 
was named for an Italian by the name of Amerigo Vespucci. He was 
in the service *of the King of Spain, and an early explorer of western 
seas. In his letters describing his trips he claimed to have discovered a 
"New World." Europeans even now know little of this continent, 
but in 1507 a German map-maker by the name of Martin Walds- 
muller published a map which described the "New World." In 
it he recognized the rather doubtful claims of discovery of Ves- 
pucci by calling the new continent America. And America it has 
been ever since in spite of the fact that we are not sure that 
Vespucci made important discoveries. It so often happens that his- 
tory perpetuates unimportant personages. You Avill find many in- 
stances of this in your study. 

For a hundred years people in other countries have been calling 
only the people of the United States Americans. The people of 
Canada are called Canadians; those of Mexico, Mexicans; of Cuba, 
Cubans, etc. But we of the United States are Americans. The World 
AVar really fixed this habit, so that now when "Americans" are 
referred to everybody understands that the people of the United States 
are meant. And although the people who live here have the blood of 
more than a score of nationalities in their veins, they are Americans. 



HKVIRAA EXERCISE; >\ H V THE rOLO\'IST.S CAHIE 

For three hundred years people have been emigrating from other 
lands and settling in America. What nationalities settled America in 
our early history? What nationalities have been settling in America 
in the past century? Let us see what the great differences between 
the two are. 



NATIVES AND IMMIGRANTS 



113 



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114 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

You have read in your history work how the English colonized the 
entire Atlantic Coast plain between the time that the Jamestown 
colony was founded in 1607 and the time that Oglethorpe was starting 
a colony to help the oppressed people in England in 1732. To show 

these early settlements briefly, prepare a short outline for your note- 
book like the following. Use any school history to get the facts. 

Name of Colony Date Settled 
1. Jamestown 1607 



Why they 


Class of 


Occupatior 


How they 


came 


people 




were rulea 


Wealth 


At first 


Tobacco- 


At first 




English 


raising. 


they had 




gentlemen. 




a charter ; 




later the 




later they 




well-to-do 




were ruled 




class who 




by a 




become 




Grovernor 




planters. 




appointed 
by the King. 


Y for the 


following 


colonies : 


Plymouth, 



Complete this summary 
Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, the Dutch in New York, New Jersey, 
Pennsylvania, Maryland, the Carolinas, and Georgia. 

Study the "Time Line" of Fig. 19. It will give you a picture oj 
when and why Europeans have come to America. 

Underline the names of colonies in which large numbers of other 
nationalities besides English settled New York, Massachusetts Bay, 
Virginia, South Carolina, New Jersey. North Carolina, New Hamp- 
shire, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. 

While there were many nationalities represented in our Colonial 
stock, they were not scattered through all the colonies, but were cen- 
tered in one or two places. The early settlements in what is now New 
York City, New Amsterdam, Flatbush, and Harlem, had people of 
many races. It is said that the first Harlem settlement, 1629, located 
at what is now the corner of Amsterdam Avenue and 125th Street, 
had 29 people living in it; among them 11 different nationalities were 
represented. 

Most of the colonists at first were English. It was English Kings 
who granted charters to land companies; it was chiefly English com- 
panies who organized expeditions of settlers to the new world ; and it 
was Englishmen who felt that they wanted new homes. 

Life in England was unsettled. There were wars with the King, 
who wanted too much power. The people were bitterly persecuted for 
their religious beliefs. Most people earned barely enough to feed 
themselves. So the great immigration began. Between 1607 and 1700 
over two hundred thousand Englishmen had settled in America, prin- 
cipally along the Atlantic Coast. (Review again Fig. 5.) 

Who were these early Americans? Were they rich or poor? Were 
they of the educated or of the laboring class? The majority of them 



NATIVES AND IMMIGRANTS 115 

were ignorant, very poor, and constantly being persecuted. Most of 
the people of England were common laborers eager to get work. They 
were paid so little that many had to be fed and clothed by charitable 
institutions. Much of the time the law punished people severely for 
what we regard as petty or small offenses. There were over 100 crimes 
for which a person could be put to death. Most of these were crimes 
which today call for a small fine or for a few weeks in prison. Their 
fight over religion was a bitter one. All who refused to attend the 
Church of England were deprived of their rights, were forbidden to 
worship God as they wished, and were even imprisoned and killed. 

THE INDENTURED SERVANTS 

Now to our colonies came many such people as these persecuted 
and poverty-stricken Englishmen. Those that were able to save enough 
to pay the cost of the trip came as free men. Those who had to borrow 
"passage money" came as indentured servants. That is, they had to 
agree to work for the person over here who paid their passage. This 
sometimes meant for a period of several years. Sad to say, many came 
under worse conditions. Poor people, particularly young boys and 
girls, were kidnapped and brought to America, where their services 
were sold to the person who would pay the greatest amount of money 
for them. It was virtually slavery. Our early population was also 
added to by another evil practice. That was the custom of emptying 
the jails and poor-houses and shipping the unfortunate inmates to 
America; indeed it is said that some judges sentenced prisoners to 
America rather than to jail. 

But do not think that these classes of people did not make good 
colonists, — good "Americans." Remember that we would not regard 
them as criminals or as of a lower class because they agreed to work 
their passage by hard labor for five years ; perhaps not even because 
they M'ere sentenced to America instead of prison in those days. There 
was an independent character in these people that made them real 
pioneers. Most of them were Englishmen accustomed to certain rights 
and privileges. They were Protestants, even dissenters, persons who 
refused to worship as the English government demanded. In the days 
when refusal to follow orders in religion meant punishment, persecu- 
tion, loss of property, even loss of liberty and life, it took men of real 
character to disagree with their rulers. 

These were the people w-ho built the nation. They were the pio- 
neers — brave, self-reliant, independent, thrifty, hard working. It was 
by such people and their sturdy descendants that the trails to the far 
West were made, that roads and canals and railways were built, that 
homes were built, and cities created. 



116 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

In addition to the English, important groups of people began to 
stream into America between 1700 and 1775 — the Scotch-Irish came, 
the French Huguenots, and the Palatines of the Rhine Valley in Ger- 
many. The coastland was well settled (see Fig. 10, page 60), and 
these new-comers had to settle the "Back-Country," the ridges and 
valley east of the Appalachian Mountains. Thus between 1700 and 
1775 the entire Appalachian mountahi "back country" from Pennsyl- 
vania to western North Carolina was settled by hardy pioneer peoples. 

We cannot pause now to describe in full why the people came here. 
Look this up in your history, or better still, in the encyclopedia, and 
be ready to tell the class what you find out. 



Colonists Become "Americans," 1775-1783 
newcomers henceforth called "immigrants" 

EXERCISE 

How did the English colonists become Americans? 

To the Teacher: This subject will be treated in 
detail in our pamphlet upon National Government. 
The exercise is suggested here to make clear to the 
pupiLs how the English colonists got their inde- 
pendence and came to be called Am.ericans. Explain 
to the class exactly what Avas g'oing- on in England 
between 1607-1760; how there was civil war between 
the King and Parliament and how foreign kings, 
ignorant of English customs, permitted the colonists 
to do practically as they pleased. Bring out the 
causes of the Revolutionary War, such as taxation, 
George Ill's determination to be King, and attempts 
to enforce the trade laws. Show the attitude of the 
English colonists between 1763 and 1776 and what 
the people of England tiiought of the resistance of 
the colonists. Do not spend any time discussing the 
details of the Revolutionary War. This exercise is 
simply to ansAver the question, How did these Eng- 
lish colonists become Ameiicans? Not more than two 
days should be given to it. We presuppose that 
pupils have had American history up to 1783 in the 
Seventh Grade. 

To answer the following questions use any school history of the 
United States. 

1. About how many English colonists were there in America in 

1750? 

2. Find out as much as you can as to the time it took for people 

and news to travel from England to America in 1750. How 
did this force the colonists to rely upon themselves? 

3. Be ready to report to the class on one of the following topics to 

show what was going on in England between 1607 and 1760. 



NATIVES AND IMMIGRANTS 117 

a. Charles I. 

b. James II. 

c. Civil War in Eiio-land, 1630-49. 

d. Bill of Rio-hts, 1688. 

e. William III of Holland. 

f. Georfje I and Georp-e II. 

g. Navigation Laws, 
h. Stamp Act. 

It is said that one reason why the colonists became independent 
of the mother country was because England was busy with 
her own troubles in the 1700 's and 1800 's. How does 
question 3 suggest an explanation of this statement? How 
would the fact that the King and the people quarreled con- 
stantly in the 1700 's and the fact that Parliament finally 
gained more power in the 1800 's, explain why the colonists 
did nearly as they pleased in this period? 

What do you think were the important causes of our Revolu- 
tionary War? 

Why did the colonists fight the King's troops a year before 
they declared themselves an independent country? Does 
the statement that these colonists considered themselves 
Englishmen explain the answer? How? 

Tell briefly what things helped the colonies most to become 
independent of England. 



Between 1790 and 1820 only a few thousand immigrants came to 
America each year. In 50 years less than a million came. The people 
were chiefly of Anglo-Saxon stock. But in the later 1840 's people 
began to come in hordes from Europe. The great procession has con- 
tinued in such a startling way for 80 years that during the last century 
over 33,000,000 people have come here froTn Europe alone. This was 
another great "westward movement." So the Germans and Irish and 
Scandinavians of the 19th century mingled with the English, Scotch- 
Irish, and German stock of the 18th century to build our America. 

Fig. 20 shows how they came in the hundred years from 1820 to 
1920. It shows also from what countries they came. It shows the 
Ii-ish, Germans, and Scandinavian immigration as the "old immigra- 
tion," distinct from the Italian and Slavic or "new immigration." 

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OP IMMIGRATION 

Study Fig. 20 carefully, and then summarize in your notebook the 
chief facts about "A Century of Immigration" by completing these 
sentences : 



118 



WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSrORTATION 



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NATIVES AND IMMIGRANTS 119 

1. The principal Old immigrant countries are , 

, and - 

2. The principal New immigrant countries are , 

, and 

3. The great difference in numbers is due to the fact that most 

of the immigrants who came before 1880 were from 

Europe, and most of the immigrants who came after 1880 were from 
Europe. 

4. Reasons why immigrants have come to America, according to 

the figure are , > 

, , and - 

5. Reasons why immigration to America decreased at certain 
times are and 

Writers on immigration have constantly spoken of the '"tide of 
immigration. ' ' Does this pictorial representation of it make you think 
of the "waves" of human beings thrown up on our shores at different 
periods in the last century .' 

Look at Fig, 20 as a whole, first. Compare the numbers of the 
"old" immigration with the numbers that came after 1880. Try to 
see the comparison as a whole. What is the fact that stands out above 
all the rest? 

When our country was being settled between 1830 and 1870, what 
European nations contributed to our population? 

Did Italy help build our early canals and railroads during the 
1830 's to 1840 's? 

Did the Slavs of Austria-Hungary or Russia cross the mountains 
on pack-horse, or tramp on foot through the forests of New York, 
Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky during the first quai-ter of the 
nineteenth century ? 

What foreign born peoples do you think did? 

Does the chart lead you to think that the Russians helped to settle 
our states west of the Mississippi River, 1850 to 1890 ? 

Did the Slavs "homestead" the land of Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, 
and the Dakotas in the 'sixties and 'seventies when the Homestead 
Law of 1862 threw open that great undeveloped plain to any farmers 
that would start out and establish a home on it? No, the Germans, the 
Scandinavians, and the Britons, — these were the people who were the 
pioneers of our Westward Movement. These were the "old" immi- 
grants. 

The "new" were still to come— after 1880 when the West was 
reclaimed, when railroads had pierced the Rocky Mountains, and the 
telegraph and telephone had tied together the Atlantic and Pacific and 
the North and the South, when great cities were rapidly develop'ing 



120 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

after all the free land was gone. It was from then, through the 
"eighties and 'nineties, right into the present years of the twentieth 
century, that the coming of the Slavs has changed the tide of immigra- 
tion from northern and western to southern and eastern Europe. 

Why Immigrants Came to America From the Old 
Countries From 1840-1880 
THE IRISH came, 1846-1855 

Did you know that there were more Irish people or people of Irish 
descent in America than in Ireland? In 1910 there were 4,504,360 
people of Irish blood in the United States. A few came before 1845, 
but the number was small. The first great numbers came in the 
"forties and 'fifties of the nineteenth century. See how this is shown 
on Fig. 20. 

The chart says "Famine and rebellion in Ireland." What does 
famine for a whole countiy mean ? AVhy, it means that the people in 
thousands, even hundreds of thousands, die because they cannot get 
enough to eat. It is a hard thing for us to realize when we have plenty 
to eat, and plenty of fuel and clothing to keep us warm, that there are 
many thousands of people in the world who do not have enough to 
keep them from starving or from freezing in the winter. This has been 
true at times in our own country. But it has been especially true in 
other countries like India and China and Persia and Ireland. 

How did it happen that in 1847 and 1848 and 1849 the Irish people 
flooded to the great harbors in tens of thousands and took passage for 
America? It happened because the Irish people had come to depend 
on only one crop in their farming. This was the potato crop, and it 
failed. You all know the Irish potato, how nourishing it is, and how 
easy it is to grow. It Avas almost the only substantial article of food 
that the Irish used. They rarely ate meat, as we do. The American 
people eat a great deal of meat — perhaps too much for their health. 
But the Irish seldom eat it. During the period from 1800 to 1850 
many Irish boys and girls grew up to be men and women without ever 
having tasted any kind of meat. Many even grew to be fathers and 
mothers and grandfathers and grandmothers without ever having 
eaten it. 

So you can see how much they had learned to depend on the potato 
crop. And you can understand what a real calamity it was when the 
potato crop failed in 1845, 1846, and 1847. The most unfortunate 
circumstances occurred. The summer of 1845 was very damp and cold 
in Ireland. Crops could be grown only with very great difficulty. In 
1846 and 1847 a plant disease swept over the farms, ruining all the 
potatoes, and bringing suffering to the people. Can you imagine 
2.000,000 people dying because they were starving? Think of whole 



NATIVES AND IMMIGRANTS 121 

towns being exterminated. Imagine what it would be tomorrow morn- 
ing, if when you got up you were told by your mother that you could 
not eat breakfast because there was no food in the house. Then at 
noon you would go without lunch and at night you would go to bed 
without dinner. The next day would be the same. You couldn't buy 
food (bread or potatoes) at the store because the storekeeper had no 
food to sell. He was starving, too. Your neighbors would gradually 
use up all their food, and then would follow days when no one had 
anything to eat. The people, where such a thing really came to pass 
in 1846-1847, becoming greatly frightened, began to go in search of 
fruit and herbs. They ate berries from trees and bark and straw — 
anything that seemed to have any food in it. Then as they became 
weak, disease broke out, and whole villages of people died. 

That is what happened in Ireland in 1845-1847. Is it any wonder 
that, when America sent food in relief ships to be distributed to those 
who could get to a port, many thousands came back here in the ships. 
These ships were not very sanitary or comfortable. People died on 
them — a great many. But the Irish were ready to brave even the 
dangers of a sea trip in the awful "steerage" (where all the poor 
people had to live on board ship) rather than live in Ireland. 

That was one reason why the Irish came to America in large num- 
bers in the years between 1846 and 1855, and again from 1881 to 
1885 — "famine in Ireland." But there was another good reason — 
"rebellion in Ireland." 

For hundreds of years Ireland had been oppressed by the English 
king and Parliament — even more severely than the Colonies in Amer- 
ica before the Revolution. There were differences in faith. The Eng- 
lish were largely Protestant and the Irish largely Catholic. There 
was also a money matter difference. The Irish had learned how to 
manufacture things — woollen cloth, cotton goods, articles of glass, 
iron, and to refine sugar. As early as 1600 the Irish made fine woollens. 
They sold these abroad, in England and in France, and in other 
countries of Europe. We must remember that Ireland was under the 
English Government then as it is now. It was part of the United 
Kingdom of Great Britain. 

English weavers also had learned how to make fine cloth. Of 
course, no power machinery was used until after 1750, for people had 
not learned how to make steam or gas engines or electrical motors. 
The weaving and other kinds of manufacturing was done by hand very 
slowly and laboriously. 

Now English weavers did not want their trade interfered with. So 
they got the English Government to forbid the Irish to make woollen 
cloth. This was as early as 1699. In the next hundred and fifty years 



122 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

England passed one law after another that in the end made it prac- 
tically impossible for Irishmen to manufacture or sell the things they 
had learned to make. All they could do was farm their small plots of 
land. Against this state of affairs they rebelled. It made them a dis- 
satisfied people, and they have been leaving Ireland continuously on 
this account. 

An Irish immigrant who came to this country thirty years ago has 
told what he thinks about it : 

"You may wonder why we are a nation of farmers. The real 
reason is that England wished us to be; she would not let us become 
an industrial nation. Englishmen engaged in manufacture, did not 
want us to manufacture goods with which they would have to com- 
pete lest it hurt their business. As early as 1699 we were forbidden by 
the English Government to manufacture woollen goods and sell them 
to foreign countries. Then it was other goods — cotton, glass, hats, 
iron, sugar. Whatever business Ireland turned her hand to was soon 
forbidden by laws made in England. Is it any wonder we came to 
America? Farming was all we could do at home. Everyone doesn't 
like farming any more than everyone likes teaching. If we went to 
the German sought the land, was content to be let alone, had no desire 
+0 command others or to mix with them, biit was determined to be 
Canada we would again be under English rule. We were very poor 
and ignorant. Many of us could neither read or write, and many 
knew no trade at which to work. We huddled in the poorer quarters 
of eastern American cities and became men of the spade and the hoe. 
It didn't look then as though we would make very good American 
citizens. In 1846 we filled the almshouses, and Irish beggars wandered 
in many of the streets of Atlantic coast cities. By 1850 there were 
over a hundred thousand Irish in New York, and there was not one 
rapidly growing Eastern city that did not have its Irish town or 
shanty-town where the immigrants clung together." 

The Germans Came, Too. 

Turn back to Fig. 20. Notice how, as the "wave" of Great Britain 
immigration receded, the German or Teutonic "wave" advanced. And 
what a remarkable contrast there was between these two races elbow- 
ing each other in their rush to get into the "promised land of liberty 
and plenty." The plodding German leaving his native land to seek 
a home in the new world, and the hot-headed, fervid, temperamental 
Irishman meeting him at the ports of entry on the same errand. 

They were almost the exact opposites in ways of living, in the 
work they desired to do, in disposition, in ambitions. "The Irishman 
went to the city, joined our construction gangs on railroads, roadway 
ar canal, or entered the trades in our factories. On the other hand^ 



NATIVES AND IMMIGRANTS 123 

reliable, took things as they came, met opposition with patience, clung 
doggedly to a few cherished convictions and sought passionately to 
possess a home and a family, to master some minute mechanical or 
technical detail and to take his leisure and his amusements in his own 
customary way."^ 

Why Did the Germans Come? 

In 1910 there were eight million people of German blood in the 
United States. Why should all these people have left their homes and 
journeyed across the sea to begin life all over again in a strange coun- 
try? Let us see. 

What kind of a government did Germany have until 1918 ? 

Was Germany a republic like the United States and like France? 

Did the people vote and elect the head of their government as we in 
America do ? 

Did they say who should be the officials over their provinces? 

They do now, in 1922; but did they before 1918? No, Germany 
was a great empire ruled over by an emperor and grand dukes and 
princes; so was Austria-Hungary; so was Russia until 1917. The 
people had very little control over their own lives. 

In the autumn of 1918 — just before the end of the Great War — the 
people of middle Europe, Germany and Austria-Hungary, started a 
revolution. It spread very quickly, and within three months was so 
strong that the German Emperor, William II of Hohenzollern, and 
the Austrian Emperor, Charles of Hapsburg, had to leave their 
thrones and run for safety to other countries. Wilhelm II fled to 
Holland, where he has since lived as plain William Hohenzollei-n ; and 
Charles of Austria went first to Switzerland and then to the island 
of Madeira, where he recently died. 

How were these rulers chosen? They were not chosen as the heads 
of our government are chosen. In this country we elect our officers 
for definite periods. Each citizen goes to the polls and votes foi- 
President, for the governor of his state, for mayor of his city, for the 
representatives in the state legislature, and in our national Congress at 
Washington. 

In Germany and Austria-Hungary the emperors come to their 
thrones not by the vote of the people, but by hereditary right. That 
is. the office passed from the father to the eldest son ; if there was no 
son in the family, it passed as a rule to the nearest male relative ; in a 
few cases the eldest daughter succeeded to the throne. 

How did it happen that the Hohenzollern family in Germany and 
the Hapsburg family in Austria-Hungary controlled the throne by 
hereditary right? Many centuries ago, these countries were divided 



'Orth, S. P., "Our Foreigners," pages 124-125. 



124 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

up into hundreds of little principalities about as large as our counties 
or some of our smallest states. There was no organized government 
then with one king or one emperor at the head of it; there was no 
organized army or police sj^stem ; and the people were constantly 
getting into quarrels with each other. As in every community, there 
were a few people who were strong enough to protect those who were 
unable to defend themselves. The weak, in return for their protection, 
M'orked and fought for the strong. As time went on, two classes of 
people developed: the lords, and the serfs. The lords became more 
and more powerful as they gained the allegiance of the serfs ; some of 
them were even able to conquer other lords and their serfs. The serfs, 
on the other hand, who had to work for their lords a certain number 
of days a week, and had to give them a large amount of their produce, 
and fight for them, became more and more dependent on their lords, 
and at the same time poorer and poorer themselves. 

Gradually the principalities in Germany (there were about 1500) 
were conquered until about 300 lords controlled them all. Then Na- 
poleon came along and reduced them to 82. By 1871 there were about 
25 ; and Prussia, the most powerful of them all, was able to unite them 
all into one country, Germany. The Prussian King became Emperor, 
and his grandson was Wilhelm II, who ruled until 1918. 

As the lords grew in power and the peasants became more depend- 
ent on them, it is easy to imagine what happened. The lords took 
advantage of their strength, and the peasants suffered the consequences. 
The living conditions of the two classes became very different. 

The peasants lived in poor sorts of huts with no comforts as we 
know them. The huts were low and dirty, with only the hardened 
earth for floors. The roofs were made of straw-thatch. The houses 
were usually of one room only— just hovels of wood and sticks plas- 
tered together with mud. The room as a rule had no chimney, and 
the only place for smoke from the open fire to get out was through an 
open hole in the roof. We can picture what this meant in cold weather 
or in time of storms, rain or snow ! 

The houses were built along scraggly lanes where chickens and pigs 
and children played together in the dirt. The peasants had no ideas 
of cleanliness or sanitation as we have today. Even the stables and 
barns were under the same roof as the house, and this is still true in 
many countries of Europe today — Germany, Russia, France, and Ser- 
bia. We would think it astonishing to live that way. In fact, most of 
us in America would be quite miserable if we had to endure such 
unhealthy conditions. 

The lords' homes, however, were much better, and the peasants did 
all their heavy labor. The lord spent most of his time in dueling and 



NATIVES AND IMMIGRANTS 125 

superintending his lands. The common man of these Middle Ages, 
say from 1000 to 1500 A. D., was bound to the land. He was regarded 
as just so much real estate, and could not leave the land he was on. 
If the land was sold, he was sold with it. He had his own bit of 
ground to plant and take care of, but he had so much work to do on 
the lord's land that he seldom had time to get a good crop from his 
own. If he did succeed in getting a harvest, he had to pay a large 
part of it to the lord for the use of the land. He also paid many 
dues and fines. Sometimes these were in money, but usually the 
peasants had no money, so they paid in eggs, or geese, or chickens, or 
calves, or grain. 

Now as this was the way the great mass of the people lived for 
almost a thousand years, you can understand how a spirit of rebellion 
was gradually growing up. Of course, for hundreds of years the 
common people did not have enough education to know that their lives 
could be made better, for none but the priests in the church could read 
or write; and there were very few books in those days. Even the 
kings and lords could not read. 

But slowly from about 1100 to 1300, cities and towns began to grow 
up in Central Europe and in England, and some of the people learned 
of better ways of living. The thatched hovels of the peasants were 
replaced by fairly clean and comfortable homes. They were not like 
ours, with gas and electric light and running water, but they were a 
great improvement over the old ones. The peasants had to carry their 
water from wells just as our pioneer forefathers did only a few years 
ago in America. There was no city water supply, and no paving of 
streets or sewer systems. There are none today in such places as China. 
They had no street lights at night either, as even our smallest villages 
in the United States have nowadays. But even so, the people in the 
cities were not bound down by the laws and regulations that their 
forefathers were bound by ; they were gaining a measure of freedom. 

Gradually more and more people learned to read and write, and 
as they did so, they began to get new ideas of freedom, and then to 
make demands of their rulers. Whenever the kings or emperors 
wanted to make a war, they would promise to give the people what they 
asked, when the war was over. But when the war was over, they forgot 
all about their promises and were more severe and oppressive than 
ever. 

From the time that Germany was unified in 1871, there was an 
organized army which grew to the size of one million soldiers. (Com- 
pare this with our little anny of 70,000 men before 1917.) All men 
in Germany were compelled to serve in the army — that is, all but a 
very few privileged ones. Most of them did not want to serve. They 
were peaceable farmers and tradesmen just like most of the people in 



126 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

other civilized countries, and they v^anted to be let alone to grow their 
crops, educate their children, and develop happy homes. The Emperor 
and his sons, and the princes who had been at the head of the separate 
principalities, and the archdukes and nobles, and others of the "nobil- 
ity," had full control of the army. They could make war whenever 
they wished and compel the soldiers to fight, and until 1918 the soldiers 
obeyed. 

The educational system in Germany is different from ours, also. 
In America each boy and girl has at least an opportunity to go to 
school. The schools, beginning with the kindergarten, go through to 
the college and university. Any boy or girl whose family can afford 
to let their child stay in school that long, has the privilege of going to a 
free public school, a free high school, and then on to college, and, if 
they are bright enough, into one of the professional schools. 

In Germany it has been different. There were different kinds of 
schools for different classes of people. A peasant boy had to go to the 
poor people's school, called the "Folks-school" (Volkschule). The 
boy from the wealthy classes and nobility went to a select school 
(gymnasium), and then into the university. He became a lawyer, or 
a doctor, or an officer in the army, or perhaps a high official in the 
government. The peasant boy rarely was able to do this. 



Is it any wonder that the desire to emigrate to America was 
strong? As far back as 1846, as Fig. 20 shows you, over 300,000 
Germans came over. An Englishman who was over in one of the 
German states on the Rhine River in 1846 said that "long files of carts 
met you every mile carrying the whole property of these poor 
wretches who were to cross the Atlantic." But the Germans who 
came here in tens of thousands in the years of the revolutions in 
Europe, 1846, 1847, 1848, were much better off than those who stayed 
behind. They had saved their money for a good purpose. The book 
stores of German towns by that time had many little books to sell 
which described conditions in America and told how to get here. Many 
of the people, like those in Italy and other countries, were told in 
letters from friends and relatives already here, and offered work if 
they would come. 

Those who stayed behind all these years when their countrymen 
were coming to this free land of America lived under one of the most 
autocratic governments the world has ever known. We shall learn 
later how it happened that the great World War came to pass in 1914, 
and how it was that after centuries of oppression and rebellion, Ger- 
many was at last made a republic. 



NATIVES AND IMMIGRANTS 127 



The Scandinavians Come 



Fig. 20 shows you that uot only Irish and Germans came to America 
during- the ''old" immigration. Scandinavians came also — several 
hundred thousand of them. When did they begin to come in large 
numbers? Who came first — the Irish, Germans, or Scandinavians? 

The last of the north European nationalities to come to America 
were the Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes from the Scandinavian 
peninsula. Although their ancestors — the Norsemen — are supposed to 
have explored our Atlantic Coast over nine hundred years ago and 
many centuries before Columbus discovered America, the hardy people 
of the north appear very little in America until after our Civil War, 
] 861-3 865. A few of them founded a New Sweden in what is now 
Delaware about the same time that the Puritans and Virginians and 
Dutch were colonizing the Atlantic coastal plain. The Dutch feared 
this Swedish colony, however, and conquered it in 1655, but they in 
turn lost it to the English nine years later. 

After our Civil War the Scandinavians came over to America in 
large numbers. As machinery for farming became more widely adopted 
in Scandinavia, the demand for labor grew less and less. To earn a 
living at home became difficult, and when stories of the fertile prairies 
of America, free for the asking, reached the ears of the industrious 
and thrifty Swedes and Norwegians, they were eager to cross the 
ocean. In the 1880 's they came in very large numbers. Now where 
do you suppose they settled? At the time they came we had large 
cities, great manufacturing centers in the East, huge, booming indus- 
tries in need of foreign labor. Did they settle in Eastern cities and 
go to work in the factories? If you live in northern Illinois or Wis- 
consin, northern Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, or one of the Da- 
kotas, or have ever visited in these states, you know where the Scan- 
dinavians settled. Now there was the most natural reason for their 
locating in those states. In their home countries they had been fisher- 
men and farmers. What did these Western states have to offer them 
that the Eastern states and cities did not have? It is said that one 
can travel as much as three hundred miles across the prairies of the 
Dakotas without leaving land owned by Scandinavians, The names on 
the mail boxes in front of the houses are Olsen. Johnson, Linstrom, 
Andersen, Carlson, Lagerquist, Lindquist, Hagstrom, Berg, Hansen, 

The Scandinavian has never looked upon himself as an 
exile. From the first, he has considered himself an American, In 
Minnesota and Dakota, the Norse pioneer often preceded local govern- 
ment, 'Whenever a township became populous enough to have a 
name as well as a number on the surveyor's map, that question was 
likely to be determined by the people on the ground, and such names 



128 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

as Christiana, Swede Plain, Numedal, Throndhjem, and Vasa leave 
no doubt that Scandinavians officiated at the christening.' These peo- 
ple proceeded with the organizing of the local government and, 'except 
for the peculiar names, no one would suspect that the town-makers 
were born elsewhere than in Massachusetts or New York.' "^ 

One of these Scandinavian immigrants, after revisiting his home 
in Norway after many years in America, said : 

" 'I was often surprised to find that persons who had never seen 
me before took me at once for an American. It seems that even the 
expression of one's face is greatly changed here. During this visit I 
discovered that my mode of thinking and my spiritual life had changed 
so much during my thirteen years in America that I did not feel quite 
at home Avith my childhood friends. ' ' '^ 

These Scandinavians played their part in the Westward Movement. 
Side by side with the native American, and the German, they turned 
the broad prairies of the northwest into fertile farms. Today they 
contribute by their crops a large share of the nation 's food. They and 
the early Germans settled on the land. The Irish, on the other hand, 
like most of the new immigrants, settled in the cities. 

The Change from the old to the New Immigration, 1890-1900. 

Turn back to Fig, 20 and study the waves of immigration. What 
interesting change was taking place in the character of our immigra- 
tion ? What peoples became interested in the United States about 1890 
that had not been concerned before ? Study carefully the reasons that 
are given for this change and make a summary of them. 

Between 1900 and the beginning of the AVorld War in 1914, more 
than three million Italians and six million Slavs poured into America 
— an average of more than a half million a year. The increasing num- 
ber was not the only important thing ; the character of the immigrants 
was different, they were of different temperament, with different stand- 
ards of living and different customs, and they knew different trades. 

In the eleven years from 1899 to 1910, nearly three-fifths of all 
the immigrants were either Italians, Slavs, or Hebrews. 

Total Immigration 1899-1910, 8,514,103 
Number of Italians, 2,061,148 24 per cent 

" Slavs, 1,849,139 22 " " 

" Hebrews, 990,182 12 " " 



4,900,469 58 



^Orth, Samuel P.: "Our Forfigners." papes -157-158 (quoting Babcock, K- C.: 
'The Scandinavian Element in the United States"). Yale University Press, New 
Haven, 1920. ^ ^ _ _ 

2RoRs. E. A.: "The Old World in the New," pages 80-81. The Century Com- 
pany, Npw York, 1914. 



NATIVES AND IMMIGRANTS 129 

It is estimated that there are six million Slavs in America at the 
present time. Very few of these, as Fig. 20 shows, came before 1890. 
Who are the Slavs ? They are not all in America by any means ; 
nearly one-third of the whole population of Europe is Slavic. Study 
Fig. 21. 

Would you say that they are a unified people like the English, 
French, Germans, Italians, or Swedes? No, nor are they a unified 
people like the people of the United States. Keep this statement in 
mind as you read on to the end of the section, and see if you are able 




Fig. 21 

then to tell why America, which contains all the nationalities of the 
earth, is more unified than the Slavic nations, who have very few 
people from outside countries. 

Now look carefully at Fig. 22. 

The area inhabited by the Slavs is darkened. Notice the number of 
countries marked off in this area : Poland, Russia, Bulgaria, Jugo- 
slovakia, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine. Each one of these has people from 
each other one, but they ar^i all Slavs. 

Between 1899 and 1908 we received Servians from : 

Croatia Bosnia Servia 

Slavonia Herzegovina Montenegro 

Istria Bulgaria Turkey 

Dalmatia South Hungary 

Think of it— Serbians from eleven different countries! In the 
same years we received Croatians from seven different countries : 
Croatia Slavonia Istria Dalmatia 

Herzegovina Bosnia South Hungary 



130 



WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 



We received Bohemians from 

Bohemia Moravia Silesia 

and Poles from 

Galicia Russia Germany 

This variety shows how every one of these areas is sprinkled with 
people from every other. This makes it impossible to draw boundary 
lines around the area inhabited by the Bohemians, or that inhabited 
by the Croatians, or by the Serbians, and so on. The territory in 
which the Slavic peoples live cannot be said to be a Slavic country, 
because one area belongs to Poland, another to Russia, another to Aus- 
tria-Hungary, and together they are not united states as our states are 



PEOPLES a PORTS OF EUROPE 
Where +he Slavs live. Mote their 
ar^e +ern+or_y. What proportion of 
Europe do they occupy'' 
reach the coasfeasilyf^ 
The Ports marked * are 
places where Immitjrants 
embark tor America 



NOTE White areas 
in Russia denote 
Mon- Slavic People 




Fig. 22 

United States. These millions of Slavs can be thought of, however, as 
belonging broadly to eight family groups. Fig. 23 shows what 
these are. 

Can you answer the questions now as to why in America all na- 
tionalities combine to make one great nation, while in Europe the 
territory inhabited by the Slavs does not represent the country of a 
single nation ? Why is not the Slavic territory also a melting pot? 



MAP KXERCISE ON THE SLAVS 

Turn to a new map of Europe in your geography book. It must 
be one made since 1918, otherwise the boundaries of the Slavic nations 
will not be correct. You see, the World War greatly changed the 



NATIVES AND IMMIGRANTS 



131 



boundaries of Austria-Hungary, Poland, Germany, and Russia and 
it was in these countries that most of the Slavs lived. The treaty 
at Paris in 1918 created the new countries of Czechoslovakia and 
Jugoslovakia, and made the country of Poland much larger. Fig, 22 
gives the location of the principal Slavic nations as they are in 1922, 
but it does not show where the various divisions of the Slavs live — 
such as the Ruthenians, the Croatians, the Bosnians, the Herzego- 
vinians. See if you can find these on your geography map of Europe. 



/9\ 


Polish 


^ 






II 




-1 suv^iV- 




8l 




A~r\ 




/I 

4a 


fcx 






/ .^ 


O 


^X 


Slovak 


\ / 



Fig. 23 
Look at Fig. 22 again. About what fraction of the territory of 
Europe do the Slavs occupy? How does this compare with their 
proportion of the population ? 

EXERCISE 

Complete these sentences to test your knowledge of this lesson. 

1. The change from the Old to the New Immigration 

means first that and 

(which nationalities?) have been 

coming to America rather than the 

and (which nationalities?) de- 
scribed in the previous lesson as the "Old" immigrant 
countries, 

2. Between 1899 and 1910 about -. 

per cent of the total number of immigrants coming to 
America were from the countries of Europe from the 
"new" immigration. 

3. In addition to the Italians and Hebrews, the 

are a very important immigrant 

group. They make up about 

(what fraction?) of the total population of Europe. 



132 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

Between 1899 and 1910 about per cent of all im- 
migrants landing in America were 

4. Chieck any of the peoples you think belong to 
the nationality referred to in question 3. 

1. Ruthenians 9. Esthonians 

2. Rumanians 10. Bohemians 

3. Hungarians 11. Croatians 

4. Russians 12. Austrians 

5. Bulgarians 13. Bosnians 

6. Letts 14. Czechs 

7. Polish 15. Finns 

8. Serbians 16. Greeks 

Now correct your answers, using Figs. 22 and 23. 
Make a list of those you missed, and study them for 
tomorrow. 

5. Write a little summary in your notebook telling 
the important changes in immigration between 1890-1910. 

Shall We Restrict Still More the Numbers 
OF Immigrants That Come? 

For a long time many Americans have urged that we restrict still 
more the number of immigrants permitted to enter the country. Their 
attitude is well expressed in the statement of one man, ''We don't 
want any more of those ignorant people from Europe over here. 
They take the bread away from us Americans." What class of people 
would agree with this statement? Would they be right in making 
such a statement? 

Other Americans have urged that no limit be put on immigration. 
They say that America must continue to be a haven for the oppressed, 
and that if America is to prosper she must encourage immigration in 
order to produce the food and clothing and other things necessary to 
life. What class of Americans would agree with this statement? Is 
it a good ai-gument for unlimited immigration ? 

You see then that there is a real issue on the question of limiting 
immigration. The conditions on which we admit new foreigners is 
an important problem for the American people to solve. 

We need many facts before we can say whether our present laws 
on this subject are for the best good of the country. 

To the laws excluding certain classes, our Congress in 1921 added 
a new law limiting the total number of immigrants that could enter in 
any one year. This law, called the "3 per cent law," provides that 
no more than three per cent of the number of people of each nationality 
residing in the United States in the year 1910 can enter in any one 



NATIVES AND IMMIGRANTS 



133 



year. For instance, if there were 100,000 Czecho-Slovaks in the United 
States in 3910, only 3,000 more Czecho-Slovaks are permitted to land 
in America each year while this law is in effect. This year Congress 
extended the law so that it will be in effect until June, 1924. 

Why do you think such a law was passed? Does Fig. 24 suggest 
the reasons ? 




(From the "Literary Digest," May 7, 1921.) 
Is this the best way to handle our Immigration Problem? 
Fig. 24 



Study the following table and then be ready to tell from which 
countries immigration will be reduced by the 3 per cent law. 

The Number That Came in 1913 , 

254,825 came from Austria-Hungary. > 

34,329 came from Germany. 
265,542 came from Italy. 
291,040 came from Russia. 

32,767 came from Scandinavia. 

43,363 came from the United Kingdom. 



134 westward movement and transportation 

The Number That Were Allowed to Come, 
Under the New Law, in 1921 

13,079 could come from Austria-Hungary. 

68,039 could come from Germany. 

42,021 could come from Italy. 

34,247 could come from Russia. 

37,716 could come from Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway, and 
Sweden). 

77,206 could come from the United Kingdom (England, Scot- 
land, Ireland, and Wales). 

From which countries will the number of immigrants be reduced 
in 1922 and 1923? Which lose by this law, the "old" or the "new" 
immigrant countries? 

Do "Native Americans" Want Immigrants to 
Settle Here Today? 

The chart which shows the "waves" of immigration. Fig. 20, from 
different countries does not tell you the situation since 1920. After 
the World War closed in November, 1918, there was a great rush of 
Europeans who wanted to come to America to live. If you will look 
carefully at Fig. 20, you will notice that between 100,000 and" 200,000 
Italians came in 1920, while almost none came during the last year of 
the war, 1918. The number who came from all the other Europeaii 
countries were similar to these. With these hordes pouring into our 
country, Americans began to fear that more immigrants would come 
than we could take into our industries and could make into real 
American citizens. 

Have Native Americans in the Past Wanted Immigrants 
TO Settle Here? 

Since 1845, foreign-born people by the hundreds of thousands 
have come here to live nearly every year. What has been the attitude 
of native Americans in past times? Have they wanted immigrants to 
come? Have they feared their coming? A few little stories will help 
us to answer these questions. 

In Colonial Times 

If you go back to Colonial times you find that as early as 1774 
George Washington was writing of his desire to persuade Germans 
from the Palatinate to settle and work in the lands that he had 
ac(iuired on the Ohio River. After describing what he would do for 
the people he wrote to Mr. Young, his agent, who was to arrange for 
the passage of these Palatines: "Having thus exhibited a general 



NATIVES AND IMMIGRANTS 135 

view of my design, I shall be obliged to you, sir, to inform me with 
as much precision as you can, what certainty there is that your ship 
will go to Holland and what probability there is of getting Palatines, 
if she does go ; when they may be expected in this country, what would 
be the freight and as near as you can judge, the whole incidental ex- 
pense attending each person delivered at Alexandria; it may not be 
amiss further to observe that I see no prospects of these people being 
restrained in the smallest degree, either by their civil or religious prin- 
ciples, which I take notice of, because these are privileges which man- 
kind are solicitous to enjoy, and upon which emigrants must be anxious 
to be informed."^ 

Benjamin Franklin also tells us how immigrants were received 
and what qualities immigrants should possess. "Much less is it ad- 
visable for a person to go thither who has no other quality to recom- 
mend him but his birth. In Europe it has indeed value ; and it is a 
commodity that cannot be carried to a worse market than to that of 
America, where people do not inquire concerning a stranger. What is 
he? but what can he do? If he has any useful art (trade) he is 
welcome ; and // he exercised it, and behaves well, he will be respected 

by all that know him Strangers are welcome because there is 

room enough for them all and therefore the old inhabitants are not 
jealous of them."- 

One of the reasons why the natives came to oppose the coming of 
the immigrant was because they felt that Europeans were sending 
their convicts and paupers to America. You have read how, in Co- 
lonial times, England shipped its paupers and criminals to America; 
how poor most of these people were. Remember that it was impos- 
sible for the average peasant in Europe to make more than a bare 
living. Emigrants who came to America were able to get here because 
relatives in America sent them money. Sometimes they were sent bj^ 
their government provided they agreed to work their passage as inden- 
tured servants. You have read how^ an emigrant would sign a paper 
agreeing to work several years for the person who paid his passage. 

Naturally very few of them arrived here with any money and at 
times they could not get work. So the city in which they landed had 
to feed and clothe them. The burden of taking care of an increasing 
stream of immigrants was heavy and the good citizens of New York, 
Philadelphia, Boston and Baltimore, where these unfortunate people 
landed, objected strenuously. Many that left home with money and 
in good health arrived penniless and sick. The journey was terrible. 



^Quoted from "George Washington's Writings" (edited by Jared Sparks. 
Boston, 1834), II, pages 383-386, in Hart, A. B.: "American History Told by 
Contemporaries," Vol. II, page 311. Macmillan, New York, 1903. 

^Quoted from Benjamin Franklin's "Two Tracts: Information to Thosp 
"Who Would Remove to America," 1784, in Hart, A. B. : "American History 
Told by (Contemporaries," Vol. Ill, page 23. 



136 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

Steerage conditions today are complained of by our immigrants, but 
they are far better than conditions in the 1700 's and the early 1800 's. 
One writer tells how a ship captain, thinking that his passengers 
had money, provided so little food that they were glad to pay eighteen 
pence each (about thirty-six cents) for rats. This was a large sum 
two hundred years ago. Those without money starved. Only 48 out 
of 156 passengers reached America. 

Conditions After 1800 

x\s the historian McMaster says, there were few objections to immi- 
grants who really wanted to work and were able to work. There was 
plenty of land and work for everyone in those days. "But complaints 
had long been current that paupers, the crippled, the lame, and dis- 
eased were being dumped on our shores." ... "In 1828 the health 
officer of Baltimore, in his annual report, declared that numbers of 
persons coming to that city from foreign parts were absolutely- 
destitute. ' ' 

An English newspaper (the Kentish Chronicle National Intelli- 
gencer, August 14, 1830) tells of three families of thirty persons, sent 
to our country by the English town of Coningsby. It declares that 
out of seventeen thousand passengers that had sailed for Canada, one- 
half were really paupers bound for the United States. "The number 
was greatly exaggerated; but that many came is true." McMaster 
also describes how the natives were so alarmed at the arrival of these 
new immigrants that Massachusetts passed a law that no alien could 
Innd in that state until the captain of the immigrant ship deposited 
$5.00 with the city officials as a guarantee that he could take care of 
himself until he found work. Today such a deposit would be more, 
say $25.00 or $50.00. 

These immigrants in the 1800 's brought to America many new 
customs and ideas, and so many native Americans did not like them. 
Immigrant clubs and colonies appeared in cities, much as they do 
today. Clubs such as the Freie Gemeinde, the Polish Democrats, the 
Universal Democratic Republican Society, with the French Section, 
the Italian Section, etc., flourished. ' Immigrants of each nationality 
lived together and maintained their own language, established their 
own newspaper and learned little about nor desired to take on Amer- 
ican customs and ways of living. Is it any wonder that some natives 
disliked the immigrants? 

New York City in the 1840's and 50 's had four German news- 
papers. There were several other ncAvspapers, such as the Boston 
Pilot and the New York Truth Teller, both of which were thoroughh- 
anti-American. Militia companies, composed mostly of immigrants, 
increased the suspicion and hostility of the Americans. McMaster 



NATIVES AND IMMIGRANTS 137 

describes this feeling as follows: "So little do these militiamen re- 
semble American militiamen that a stranger seeing them on parade 
might think them visitors from foreign parts, for their officers give 
orders in foreign tongues and they carry flags emblazoned with devices 
and wear uniforms patterned after those used in the countries of 
their birth. "^ 

To prevent these immigrants from increasing in number and 
powers, the Americans organized a political party about 1840. At 
fn'st they called it "The Supreme Order of the Star Spangled Ban- 
ner." At first it was so secret that even most of its members answered 
(juestions about it by saying "I do not know." It became an active, 
but minor, political party and was known as the "Know Nothing 
Party," because its members claimed not to know what the society 
aimed to do. It believed that only native Americans should be eligible 
for governmental positions. It tried to dominate the Congress of the 
United States. It was influential for a few years but gradually lost 
influence as a party. 

The next story tells of another reason for the natives not liking 
the immigrants. 

The Molly Maguires, 1850-1870 

This story dates back to the time when the anthracite coal fields 
in Pennsylvania were opened in the 1830 's. Most of that country, 
now crowded with busy cities, was unsettled land — rough, hilly, and 
heavily wooded. Having almost no settlers, it was an excellent hiding 
place for criminals who were trying to escape the law. As the coal 
mines were opened the miners brought in to run them were for- 
eigners — Germans, Irish, English, Poles, Scotch, etc.; these people 
had had experience in mining. 

Now these lawless people in the coal mines of Pennsylvania organ- 
ized a secret society called the "Molly Maguires," which began to 
intimidate bosses and mine owners. If a member of the Molly Ma- 
guires had a dispute or trouble with a boss at the coal mine, the 
organization, all in secret, sent the mine boss or owner a warning to 
give the man what he wanted. These letters often looked like "black- 
hand ' ' messages you may have heard about with pictures of cross bones 
and skull, or a coffin. If the boss did not heed the message, he might 
be waylaid and severely beaten, even killed. 

Never could the police find the guilty persons, so secret was their 
work and so well organized were they. Gradually they grew bolder 
and bolder. From 1860-1873, no one w^as safe in the anthracite re- 
gion. This society ruled the coal district. Murder followed murder 



^Adapted from McMaster: '-History of the People of the 
Vol. 8, page 75. D. Appleton & Co., New York. 1916. 



138 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

and property was set on fire. In fact you can hardly imagine a more 
unsafe place in the whole wide world. No one would give information 
A\hich might bring the guilty ones to justice, for fear of his own and 
his family's safety. Even fellow countrymen who strongly disap- 
proved of the methods and deeds of the Molly Maguires would 
not tell. 

Finally the president of the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and 
Iron Company, Mr. Franklin B. Gowen, went to the Pinkerton Detec- 
tive Agency for help. This was in 1873. The detective who was given 
the difficult job of finding the evidence and bringing the leaders of 
these outrages to the courts was a young Irishman, James McParlan. 
For months he worked as a coal miner, so that finally he was able to 
join the Molly Maguires himself. Then he found out many of their 
secrets. He finally was able to prove that 19 of the Molly Maguires 
were guilty of murder and other crimes. They were tried. Some were 
executed and others imprisoned and the Molly Maguires went out of 
existence. 



Now it was such events as these that made many native Americans 
think that all "foreigners" were lawless. It served to bring about 
a great deal of opposition to immigration. For decades people tried 
to get Congress to exclude immigrants. It was not until 1882, how- 
ever, that the United States passed a definite immigration law. Even 
the law of 1882, important as it was, did not solve the problem of 
deciding who should be pei-mitted to settle here. We will read later 
of the different ways by which America has tried to decide. 

To the Teacher : You will find these questions 
treated very fully in Pamphlets No. 1 of the Seventh 
Grade Series and No. 1 of the Ninth Grade Series. 
Lack of space prevents us from printing a fuller 
account hej-e. 

The stories of this section have told you who the people were that 
helped to settle this wide country of ours. Two kinds of people did it : 
first, the descendants of the sturdy colonists of the Atlantic plain, 
mostly of British blood; second, the pioneer, adventuring classes of the 
Irish, Germans, and Scandinavians who came here from 1845 to 1890 
and settled on our farming lands. It can hardly be said that the new 
immigrants, since 1890, helped to develop the country. They came to a 
country of cities and manufactories all developed, with free land 
mostly gone. 



XII. A FEVER OF ROAD BUILDING 

1790-1820 

When people settle in villages and towns they turn to road making. 
As long as homes are very scattered and people raise and make every- 
thing they need, then road making is not much engaged in. The trails 
and paths are all that a pioneer and self-sufficient frontier feels that 
it needs, at least that it has time to make. But village and town life 
is different ; people feel the need of roadways. 

From the very beginning of our settlements in Massachusetts, New 
York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia roads were constructed and legisla- 
tures made it compulsory upon villages to have them. Even in 1639, 
only nine years after the founding of the Massachusetts Bay colony, 
it was decreed "that the ways should be six to ten rods wide in com- 
mon grounds, thus allowing sufficient room for more than one track." 
It was ordered that stumps and shrubs must be trimmed off close to 
the ground and "sufficient bridges were to be built over streams and 
marshy places." 

Do you think road-making meant doing what we do today when we 
build tine macadam roads? Did they dig down a foot or so, 60 to 100 
feet wide, and put crushed rock in the bottom, adding layers of fine 
crushed stone and sand and cement, finishing off the top with a layer 
of cement or tar and rolling it with a huge steam roller? No. Road 
making in pioneer days meant merely chopping out the trees wide 
enough for two wagons, clearing away timber which had fallen across 
"the way" (it was a constant source of trouble and danger), "blaz- 
ing," or "notching" the trees so that the traveller might not miss the 
track and building bridges or laying logs "over all the marshy, 
swampy and difficult dirty places." 

And the marshy, swampy and difficult dirty places were very, very 
common in the Appalachians of Maryland and Pennsylvania in the 
1700 's. Listen to an account of the way Braddock's army blazed the 
first road through towards Pittsburg way back in 1753. 

The Trials of Travelling in the Wilderness 

"From the journals of the time may be caught faint glimpses of 
the toils and dangers of travel through these wild hill regions. Let 
the traveller of today, as he follows the track that once was Brad- 
dock's Road, picture the scene of that earlier time when, in the face 
of every natural obstacle, the army toiled across the mountain chains. 



140 



WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 



Where the earth in yonder ravine is whipped to a black froth, the 
engineers have thrown down the timber cut in widening the trail and 
have constructed a corduroy bridge, or rather a loose raft on a sea of 
muck. The wreck of the last wagon which tried to pass gives some 




^ Wagon roads in the olden days. Uo you think many road^- 
can be found todav? 



ike tl 



additional safety to the next. Already the stench from the horse killed 
in the accident deadens the heavy, heated air of the forest. The 
sailors, stripped to the waist, are ready with ropes and tackle to let 
the next wagon down the incline; the pulleys creak, the ropes groan. 
The horses, weak and terror-stricken, plunge and rear ; in the final 
crash to the level the leg of the wheel horse is caught and broken ; 
one of the soldiers shoots the animal ; the traces are unbuckled ; an- 




^These pictures show roads before and after they are improved. 
Do you think it is worth the cost to improve roads ? Why ? 

Other beast is substituted. Beyond, the seamen are waiting with tackle 
attached to trees on the ridge above to assist the horses on the cruel 
upgrade — and Braddock, the deceived, maligned, misrepresented, and 
misjudged, creeps onward in his brave conquest of the Alleghanies in 



■From "Progress and Prosperity," Washington, W. D. 



A FEVER OF ROAD BUILDING 



141 



a campaig-n that, in spite of its military failure, deserves honorable 
mention among the achievements of British arms. 

"Everywhere, north and south, the early American road was a 
veritable Slough of Despond. Watery pits were to be encountered 
wherein horses were drowned and loads sank from sight. Frequently 
traffic was stopped for hours by wagons which had broken down and 
blocked the way. Thirteen wagons at one time were stalled on Logan's 
Hill on the York Road. Frightful accidents occurred in attempting 
to draw out loads. Jonathan Tyson, for instance, in 1792, near Phila- 
delphia, saAV a horse's lower jaw torn otf by the slipping of a chain. 




A frequent experience. But the gent always got out sooner 



later' 



Save in the winter, when in the northern colonies snow filled the 
ruts and frost built solid bridges over the streams, travel on these 
early roads was never safe, rapid, nor comfortable. The comparative 
ease of winter travel for the carriage of heavy freight and for pur- 
poses of trade and social intercourse gave the colder regions an advan- 
tage over the southern that was an important factor in the develop- 
ment of the country. "- 

That was road building in the wilderness as armies did it. That 
was real "blazing" of M'agon trails through untouched forests. Fol- 
lowing in the wake of armies came the caravans of trade. The pack- 
horse trail widened gradually to become the rough wagon road. But 
this required generations — not just years, things changed so slowly 
in those pioneer times. Three-quarters of a century, 75 years later, 
an English traveller gives us a picture of travel in much the same 



^Reproduced with permission of Bobbs-MerriU Co. From Dunbar, op. cit., 
Vol. II. pase 565. ^ ^„ ^^ ^^ 

^Hulbert. A. B. : "The Paths of Inland Commerce," pa^es 51-53. The Chron- 
icles of America, Vol. 21. Yale University Press. 



142 



WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 



region. Read Judge Hall's account taken from the diary that he 
kept of his travels through the same mountains in 1828 : 

"No description can convey any adequate idea of the winding 
paths, the steep declivities, the overhanging cliffs, and dark ravines, 
with which these Alpine regions abound — the sublime grandeur of the 
scenery, or the difficulty and danger of the roads. At the time of 
which I am speaking [1828], the turnpikes, which have since rendered 
the passes of the mountains so safe and easy, were not completed ; and 
if I found it toilsome in the extreme to accomplish my journey on 
horseback, you may conceive the almost insurmountable difficulties pre- 
sented to weary-laden wanderers, encumbered with waggons and bag- 
gage ; yet I found these roads crowded with emigrants of every descrip- 



f '^'' -:u^^. ' 




1 kept oil '^wiayuiy tluouiih the rle^cit^ 
Cone Old ota^e." 



lie 'boot' ot the 



tion, but the majority were of the poorest class. Here I would meet a 
few lusty fellows, trudging it merrily along ; and there a family, more 
embarrassed, and less cheerful: now a gang of forty or fifty souls, 
m.en, women, and children; and now a solitary pedestrian, with his 
oaken staff, his bottle, and his knapsack; and once a day, a stageload 
of tired travellers, dragged heavily towards the west. Sometimes 1 
beheld a gentleman toiling along with a broken-down vehicle, and some- 
times encountered the solitary horseman : here I espied the wreck of a 
carriage, or the remains of a meal; and there the temporary shelter 
which had protected the benighted stranger. At one time, beside a 
small stream rushing through a narrow glen, I encountered a party 
of about fourscore persons, with two or three waggons. They had 
halted to bait [«'. f., to feed the horses] ; the beasts were grazing among 
the rocks, the men cleaving wood for fires, and boughs to erect a tene- 
ment for the hour ; the women cooking or nursing their children, and 
the ros}^ boys and girls dabbling in a waterfall. When, from the sum- 



iReprinted with permission of World Book Company. 
Indian Boy," by Wilson and Driggs. 



Prom "The White 



A FEVER OF ROAD BUILDING 143 

mit of a mountain, or one of its precipices, where the road wound 
beneath my feet, appearino- at intervals as far as the eye could reach, I 
beheld one of these large caravans, composed of half-clad beings, of 
every age and sex, slowly Avinding up the mountain path, or reclining 
at mid-day among the rocks. I could compare them only to the gipsy 
bands, described by foreign novelists. 

"At one of the most difficult passes of the mountain I met a caval- 
cade, whose description will apply to a numerous class; they were from 
New England. The senior of the party was a middle-aged man, hale, 
well built, and decently clad. He was guiding a pair of small, lean, 
active horses, harnessed to a light waggon, which contained the bed- 
ding, and provisions of the party, and a few articles of household 
furniture; two well-grown, barefoot boys, in home-spun shirts and 
trowsers, held the tail of the waggon, laudably endeavoring to prevent 
an upset, by throwing their weight occasionally to that side which 
seemed to require ballast, while the father exerted his arms, voice, and 
whip, in urging forw'ard the ponies. In the rear toiled the partner of 
his pilgrimage, conducting, like John Rodgers' wife, 'nine small chil- 
dren and one at the breast,' and exhibiting, in her own person and 
those of her offspring, ample proof, that whatever might be the char- 
acter of the land to which the}' were hastening, that which they had 
left was not deficient in health or fruitfulness. Nor must I omit to 
mention a chubby boy of six years old, who by sundry falls and immer- 
sions, had acquired the hue from the soil from head to foot, and though 
now trudging knee-deep in the mire, was craunching an apple with the 
most entire composure. They had reached the summit of the mountain 
just as I overtook them, and as they halted to rest, I checked my horse 
to observe them. As they stretched their eyes forward over the 
interminable prospect, they were wrapped in silent wonder. As far as 
the vision could extend there was nothing to intercept it; beneath our 
feet lay mountains, and vallies, and forests, and rivers, all of which 
must be passed before these 

'Sad unravellers 
Of the mazes to the mountain's top,' 

could reach the land of promise, which they imagined they could now 
dimly discern in the distant horizon. They looked back with a kind 
of shuddering triumph to what thej' had accomplished ; they looked 
forward with a trembling hope at what was to come. I thought I could 
see in their faces regret, hope, fear, resignation — but they spoke cheer- 
fully, and expressed no dissatisfaction; and after answering their 
inquiries as to their route onward, I left them. Tired souls ! they have, 
probably, long ere this, surmounted their fatigues, and found a happy 
home in a land of plenty, surrounded with fat pigs and fat children. 



144 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

"While I, delving among the labyrinths of the law, find mazes more 
intricate, and steeps more arduous, than the winding paths of the 
mountains. ' ' 

The Stone Roads of the Latter 1700 's 

Perhaps .you will be astonished to find that for over a hundred and 
fifty years no real improvement came about in road making. Not until 
after the Revolutionary War came to an end , and the 

What year? 

people became more keenly interested in the trade of the West, did 
Pennsylvania and Maryland lead the way in a feverish building of 
better roads, canals and railroads. 

In your geography study the physical map of the eastern Pennsyl- 
vania region again. Notice how the land around Philadelphia was 
rather low and reasonably flat, how long level stretches reached out 
west from Philadelphia toward Lancaster and to Harrisburg on the 
Susquehanna River. As you drive west from Lancaster you come to 
York before reaching the hilly region. From there the straighter road 
through the mountains to Pittsburg takes one through Chambersburg 
and Bedford. This southern road, as you will see from the map, does 
not follow the river valleys. The northern one does, — that through 
Harrisburg, Altoona, and Johnstown. 

What rivers does the northern route follow? 

Now, prior to 1800 the first part of this road from Philadelphia to 
Lancaster was called the Lancaster Turnpike. For fifty years a rough 
roadway had grown up along there and the country round about was 
known as a great pack-horse and cattle district. It was a rich stock- 
breeding ground that lay between the Delaware and Susquehanna 
rivers. It had been settled in the early 1700 's by thousands of Ger- 
mans and Scotch-Irish from Ireland who had emigrated to America. 
They had not been welcomed very heartily by the people on the right 
coast; when they came they had found that the coast lands were all 
taken up. So they moved back into the somewhat higher land. From 
1725 to 1775 this became known as the Bach -Country. In another 
pamphlet you will read more of these sturdy Scotch-Irish and German 
colonists of the Back-Country who became the ancestors of a long line 
of generations of fine "Americans." 

So many Germans came in those years of 1725-1775 that the 
people of the Back-Country of eastern Pennsylvania became known 
as the "Pennsylvania Dutch." To this day New Englanders and other 
Eastern people refer to them as that. 

But these people, with the Scotch-Irish and the English settlers, 
did learn how to raise fine horses — "brave fat horses," as the aston- 
ished English soldiers with Braddock's army in 1753 "called the 
mounts of five Quakers who unexpectedly rode into camp as though 



A PE^^ER OF ROAD BUILDING 145 

straight from the land of Goshen." From these animals, which were 
bred with the Indian ponies, were produced strong and wiry pack- 
horses and with these the Pennsy Iranians developed an astonishing 
pack-horse trade across the mountains. It was said that one of these 
horses would transport 200 pounds of merchandise over the bad moun- 
tain trails ! But the pack-horse trade, great as it was, could not begin 
to compare with the heavy trade beginning to come down the Dela- 
ware, the Susquehanna anct the Hudson rivers. So the people of Phila- 
delphia and Baltimore, hearing how anxious New Yorkers were to 
build roads and improve the rivers of New York State, made up their 
minds they would do the same. 

Toll Roads Were Profitable 

They accomplished an astonishing thing in the year 1792, They 
liad formed a society called the Society for the Improvement of Roads 
and Inland Navigation. In 1792 they organized a company — the Lan- 
caster Turnpike Road Company — and built a stone road 62 miles long 
in two years' time. It cost nearly half a million dollars. In those 
days this was a stupendous sum of money to spend on road building. 

And perhaps still more astonishing was the way they got the money 
to pay for it. Do you think the state of Pennsylvania paid for it, or 
the Federal government at Washington ? That is the way roads are 
paid for nowadays. The state builds them and charges each prop- 
erty owner a tax to cover the cost. But in 1792, 130 years ago, people 
had not learned to trust so much to the state and national government. 
In fact they were afraid of giving the government too much power. 
So, it did not occur to them to pass bills through the state legislature 
asking the people for half a million dollars for a little strip of road 62 
miles long. 

On the other hand the husiness men of 1792 did believe that the 
improvement of roads would he good for husiness. And so they formed 
a company and in one day's time — from 11 o'clock in the morning to 
midnight — 2226 shares of stock were subscribed for. Each subscriber 
paid down $30 in cash for each share that he bought. 

Now while these business men believed in the value of good roads 
they were very much afraid that canal building would not pay. So 
while the Lancaster Turnpike Company was subscribed for in one day 
the people of northern New York, about the same time, found it almost 
impossible to sell shares in the project to build a canal thi^ough the 
state. We will learn later why they were so very doubtful of the 
scheme and how difficult it was to dig canals through the mountains. 

Can you imagine that manj^ people who were not financially inter- 
ested in the road opposed it and tried to get the legislature not to let 
the Turnpike Company have the "franchise" to build the road? 



146 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

Today, as then, each company that builds a road, or a canal or a rail- 
road or a trolley line, has to get permission from the state legislature 
or the local city government. This is because the building of such 
things is of interest to the whole public, — not just to the subscribers 
of stock. (The permission that they get is called a ''franchise.") 

Now perhaps you wondered why the people were so eager to sub- 
scribe for stock in the company. It was not just because they saw 
that better roads meant better business. It was more because the com- 
pany was given a monopoly over the use of the road. 

Do you know what a monopoly is? Why is it valuable? 

A gate, or turn-stile, was built at different places on the road and 
each person who drove onto the road with any kind of vehicle had 
to pay a "toll" or fee at each one he passed. Sometimes these tolls 
were only a few cents; often times they were much more — even a 
dollar. 

Very large revenues were taken in from these "toll-roads." Think 
of it — dividends as high as 15 per cent were paid out each year to 
those who owned shares. This meant that for every $100 share a per- 
son had bought he would receive a "dividend" of $15 at the end of 
the year. This is very high. Even nowadays only a few of the bigger 
trusts and great corporations pay more than 6 or 7 per cent. If you 
buy bonds today you receive from 5 to 7 dollars annually on each 
hundred dollar bond. If you put your money in a savings bank you 
receive only 4 or 4i'2, rarely as much as 5 per cent. So you see what 
a profitable business running a toll-road was. We shall read more 
about the way these were real monopolies in the next pamphlet. 

Toll bridges as well as roads were met very frequenth' in those 
days and even now one finds toll-bridges, where in order to get across 
a stream with a wagon or automobile one must pay the fee. It is much 
like riding across on a ferryboat, you see ; one would expect to pay for 
that. In order to drive across from the north shore into Portsmouth, 
New Hampshire, one must cross a long old wooden bridge. A toll gate 
man stops one's automobile at either end and charges a fee of 25 cents. 
A road which we know of (only six miles long — connecting the country 
road from San Antonio, Texas, to the Medina Dam) is also a toll-road. 
A fee of 25 cents is charged to drive over this little stretch of road. 
The private company that built the dam — the owners are Englishmen, 
by the way, and do not live in America — also built the road. Nobody 
can drive over it without paying the company a fee. 

Hundreds of roads and bridges in America are still controlled by 
pi-ivate individuals — not owned by the public at large. And each one 
jnakes a profit for its owners. So you see now why the Lancaster 
Tui-npike Company shares were bought so eagerly? It was a profitable 
business matter. It was wonderfully well located, right where the 



A FEVER OF ROAD BUILDING 



147 



traders from the southwest in Virgmia, from the western uplands of 
Chambersburg- and Bedford, from the New York highlands of the Sus- 
quehanna Valley, had to travel to trade with the merchants of Phila- 
delphia. 

New Kinds of Transportation 

So a new kind of transportation was created and life "on the road" 
took on a very different appearance. The heavy, lumbering old 
freighters were still in evidence on this new hard thirty-seven foot 
road, but more and more frequently began to appear the fine two- 
wheeled private family carriages, the bright colored stage-coaches, 
the carts of many fashions, together with the new " conestogas. " 

It was the Conestoga Wagon that was to be most famous perhaps 
of all American vehicles in the great w^estward movement. It was 




The Conestoga wagon was sometimes pulled by oxen and 
sometimes by horses. See footnote, page 103. 

named for a tribe of Indians who lived, in the earlier days before 
1700, along the valley of a creek called "Conestoga navigation," in 
Pennsylvania. Ingenious freight carriers they were, as you see by 
the picture. 

They were made with a curious and cleverly shaped bottom, curved 
each way, length and breadth, so that the ends and sides were ten 
or twelve inches higher than the middle. In this way packages would 
not roll around or slide out and the passage across rough roads and 
trails was much more safely made. Furthermore it was a covered 
wagon; it was the forerunner of the great canvas-covered '.'prairie 
schooner" in which the pioneer of the Ohio and Mississippi settled 
the central and western plains. This was the freighter which later 
stood so well the terrific burden of carrying the household belongings 
of the Forty-niners across the rugged trails and the wearing sands of 



148 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

the Rockies. A gaudy thing it was, too. in the Conestoga days of 
1800 on the Lancaster Pike ; always painted the same — under body 
of bright blue and the upper parts of red. It had great wheels with 
broad tires four to six inches in width and massive harness straps and 
irons to go with the rest of the outfit. An unusual mode of freight 
transportation it was that these inventive ''Dutchmen" and "Yankees" 
perfected in order to handle the growing trade with the West. 

And the drivers matched their outfits ; brave, strong men who 
could weather any storm and manage six horses tugging at the bits. 
At the same time they found time to be helpful to wayfarers "stuck- 
in-the-mud" of some rough road or to be courteously protecting to 
lone women passengers. They were a rough, uncouth but honest, 
courageous and sociable lot of people. It was to the sturdy men of 
such types that we owe much of the great developments in trans- 
portation and industry that came in the next two or three generations. 

New York State and Maryland Also Built Stone Roads 

The fever of road building affected the whole Eastern seaboard. 
New York State took advantage of the wonderful Mohawk Valley and 
completed in 1796 the 100 mile-long Genessee road. 

On the map in your geography find Utica and Geneva in the 
Mohawk Valley. The famous Genessee Road was an Indian path in 
J une, 1796 ; in September it was so much a completed stone road that 
a stage made the hundred miles to Geneva in three days. "After this 
wagons and stages began to run frequently between Albany and 
Geneva. A wagon could carry fourteen barrels of flour eastward and 
in about a month could return from Albany Avith a load of needed 
supplies. In five weeks, one winter, five hundred and sevent.y sleighs 
carrying families passed through Geneva to lands farther west." The 
Genessee Road made this greater travelling westward much easier. 

New York plunged into road building in dead earnest. Between 
1800 and 1807 eighty-eight road companies were formed and the 
people subscribed eight million dollars. Twenty large expensive bridges 
were constructed ; 2000 miles of turnpike were laid. All the Atlantic 
plain was affected. From New England to Georgia they were making 
roads ; dirt roads, bad in rough seasons, fine stone or plank roads, good 
in all seasons. Occasionally they got along with corduroy log roads. 
But it was roads, roads, roads, that were in the minds of business 
people north and south. And most eyes were turned toward the 
undeveloped West. 

Baltimore as well as New York City hurried to build pikes toward 
the westward. You see what a pressure the desire for trade and profit 
exerts on people. It drives them to ever greater effort. The Baltimore 
citizens built turnpikes to Frederick and to Reisterstown. They were 



A FEVER OF ROAD BUILDING 



149 



expensive gravel and stone roads. Historians tell us that the Reisters- 
town road cost $10,000 a mile, and the Frederick pike no less than 
$8,000 for every mile laid. Later when the great National Road was 
built through Cumberland these roads joined it. Thus for years Balti- 
more kept its lead in trade because of its fine macadam roads. 

Have you ever noticed how frequently rolled roads are called ' ' mac- 
adam roads"? Named for John MacAdam all these stone roads were. 
He was an English engineer who, about 1780 to 1800, was teaching peo- 
ple how to make fine stone roads that would drain off well and stand the 
wear of heavy freight. Today we speak of a road that is built on a 
crushed rock foundation with a nice smoothly rolled surface as a 
"macadamized" road in honor of him. 



The Great National Road: the Cumberland 




Fig. 25 



One more road we must refer to briefly before we learn about the 
wonderful era of flat-boat and river travel that began in the last 
quarter of the 1700 's : This was the Cumberland Road, — the first great 
national highway. It began at Cumberland, in Maryland (can you 
find it on the map of Fig. 25?), which in 1811, when it was started, 
was quite far away in the Back-Country. The road ran way out west 
into Kentucky and Ohio. Interestingly enough, it did not pass 
through Pittsburg on its way west. 



]50 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

MAP EXKUCISE 

On the map of Fig. 25, find these cities : 

Baltimore, Md. Columbus, Ohio 

Hagerstown, Md. Indianapolis, Ind 

Cumberland, Md. Terre Haute, Ind. 

Brownsville, Pa. Vandalia, Ind. 

Wheeling, W. Va. St. Louis, Mo. 

Zanesville, Ohio 
On a blank mimeographed map of the United States locate each 
of these cities. 

Can you figure out how it happens that the Vandalia to Terre 
Haute stretch has an earlier date than the piece from Indianapolis 
to Terre Haute? 

Turn to a map in your geography which shows these cities. How 
many miles long is the piece from Indianapolis to Columbus? Can 
you tell from the map? How do you tell distances on the map? 

Scale of s+a+uVe miles 

10 50 100 150 200 250 



This illus+ra+es how the scale 
on a map appears. Look for 
+he scale on each map you see. 

Do you find a scale marked off in the lower corner that looks 
sometnmg like the illustration in the scale? 

Put your ruler on the scale and see how many inches represent 
250 miles on the map. How many miles to each inch ? 

On the map that you have turned to ni your geography, how many 
miles are there to every inch? 

How many inches is it from Indianapolis to Columbus? Then hoAV 
many miles is it from Indianapolis to Columbus? 

Now that you know how to use a scale on a map, figure out how 
long the Cumberland Road was by 1840. How many miles did they 
build a year? 

The Cumberland Road AVas a National Road 
Built by the Federal Government 
You have learned how the Lancaster Turnpike and scores of other 
stone roads in New York and Pennsjdvania and Maryland were built 
by private companies for profit. But the National Road was no such 
local enterprise. It so far surpassed those that there was no com- 
parison between them. A great national highway was made, pushing 
along behind the frontier, advancing mile by mile as the pioneers and 
settlers advanced and in turn making the settling of the country and 
the growth of business very much more rapid. 



A FEVER OF ROAD BUILDING 151 

To 110 one state was this road confined. This was to be the great 

iiiter-state artery of trade. Beginning at , it crossed 

(what state) 

into , from there into , and from there 

into (Pill in the proper states.) In 29 years 

miles of fine stone roads were made. It was 64 feet wide (4 rods), built 
very carefully with stone and sand to drain off well. It cost more 
than $13,000 a mile. Do you remember how much the Lancaster Pike 
and some of the earlier roads cost ? 

The Federal government had been interested in national trans- 
portation for a long time. George Washington in 1784, before he 
was elected President, had taken a long trip up into the Pittsburg 
region and had foretold that a great volume of trade would come out 
of the West. He saw clearly, even when it was nothing but a wilder- 
ness, that wealth — enormous wealth — would be for those who settled 
this district. In his diary he noted that about Great Meadows, "the 
upland, east of the meadow, is good for grain." He described the 
places where portages and canals could connect the smaller streams 
with the Potomac, the James, the Susquehanna, even the Hudson. 
He foresaw how the produce of thousands of farmers who would settle 
the Ohio Valley would be borne east on these streams and roadways 
and how the manufactured goods of the Atlantic cities would be 
carried back to them. He took the place of the present city of Detroit 
as the center around which the trade would revolve. He foretold 
New York's use of the Mohawk Valley where the Erie Canal and the 
New York Central Railroad are now, likewise Philadelphia's need to 
open up almost the exact route where the Pennsylvania and Erie rail- 
roads now run. 

We must remember, too, that the head of our new national govern- 
ment's desire to help the people open up "the West" was not entirely 
disinterested. Washington was a man of large wealth himself — an 
owner of a big estate. He said in some of the letters that he wrote 
after his trip to the Ohio, that he hoped that he and his friends might 
secure some of the valuable lands and rights before too many knew 
a])out them. He knew that there surely would be a westward rush. 
And not five years after that the rush began in earnest. 

So, due to men like Washington in the new federal government, 
the question of roads and canals were being constantly agitated. In 
1811 the government appropriated a quarter of a million dollars and 
work was begun. So fast was it built that mail coaches drove over 
it to Wheeling, West Virginia, in 1817. "Within five years one of 
the five commission houses doing business at Wheeling is said to have 
handled over a thousand wagons carrying freight of nearly two tons 
each." 



152 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

And now freight and passenger traffic began to hum on the Na- 
tional Road. Private companies formed stage coach and freight lines, 
and built stage houses in the stirring towns and villages that began 
to grow up along the road. Striking changes came about in the coaches 
themselves. The Concord coach became a nationally known vehicle. 
Today we all have heard of the New York Central Railroad, the Penn- 
sylvania Railroad, the Boston and Maine, the Northern Pacific, and 
many others. So, too, in 1820 to 1830 were even the children in the 
new West familiar with great stage lines — the National, the Pioneer, 
the Good Intent, the June Bug, the Defiance, the Pilot. Even the 
coaches were named after well known statesmen of the day, just as 
today our Pullman cars and our steamers are named. "The drivers 
of these gay chariots were characters quite as famous locally as the 
personages whose names were borne by the coaches. Westover and 
his record of forty-five minutes for the twenty miles between Union- 
town and Brownsville, and 'Red' Bunting with his drive of a hundred 
and thirty-one miles in twelve hours with the declaration of war 
against Mexico will be long famous on the curving stretches of the 
Cumberland Road."' 



IMPORTANT NOTE TO THE TEACHER 



Through an error in arransenieiil, the section on "A Fever of 
Road Unildinjj;" apiieurs as \'o. XII. It should be uunH)ered XIV 
and should follow the section on "How American Transportation 



D eveloped witli tlic Westward >Io^enient of the People." Please 
teach Sections XII, XIII and XIV in the following order: 

XII. Map Kxercise: Compare the I/aiids (Hviied with the 

I.ands Settled. 

XIII. How American Transportation Developed. 

XIV. A Fever of Road Building. 



XII. MAP EXlllRCISE: COMPARE THE LANDS 
OWNED WITH THE LANDS SETTLED— 1790 AND 1850 

Now that you know the story of how we acquired our broad lands 
and something of how we settled them, try the following map exercise. 

1. On a blank map of the United States outline clearly the ''fron- 
tier" as it was in 1800. On the same map color in the principal 
sections of the land from ocean to ocean and letter them so as to 
show what countries owned them at that date. 

2. On another blank map of the United States outline clearly the 
frontier in 1850. Color in the principal sections that we had acquired 
from the other countries since 1790, and letter in the names and dates. 



XIII. HOW AMERICAN TRANSPORTATION DEVELOPED 
WITH THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT OF THE PEOPLE, 

1790-1880 

We have learned how, in 1790, the eyes of the East turned toward 
the headwaters of the Ohio region — towards Pittsburg. To Pittsburg 
(Fort Pitt then) went the armies of Braddock in 1753 and of Forbes 
in 1758. Towards Pittsburg the long rough trails of Pennsylvania, 
Maryland, Virginia, and Southern New York converged. Towards 
Pittsburg and the easy boating of the Ohio River the travellers of the 
Hudson and Mohawk valleys went by round-about routes. Down the 
Oswego River in northern New York, by sailboat on Lake Ontario to 
Black Rock (Buffalo now), once around the great Niagara Falls, by 
sail again to Presque Isle; then a muddy fifteen miles by horseback 
to the Alleghany River and by easier boating again to where the 
Alleghany and the Monongahela join the Ohio at Pittsburg. 

The Race for Western Trade, 1790-1840 

Four cities were especially interested in the trade with the Ohio 
Valley — New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, close together, and farther 
north, Boston. The history of the fifty years from 1790 to 1840 is 
really a most interesting storj^ of the way business competition among 
these cities brought about a wonderful revolution in transportation. 
Difficulties make people invent new and easier ways of doing things. 
And so the grim old Appalachian Mountains, thwarting as they did the 
desire of New York and her sister cities for the valuable trade with 
''the West," forced the people to find an easier way to bring it 
through. Now began effort after effort to improve roads, build canals, 
master the rivers and develop railroads. Better transportation was 
the goal the Easterners worked for. 

You will get a clearer idea of the reason New York was so anxious 
for better transportation if you will study the relief map of Fig. 15. 

To what cities was the trade of western New York State and eastern 
Pennsylvania going ? What river valleys provided the easiest passages 
down? 

Can 5'ou see why George Washington thought Alexandria (Vir- 
ginia) might become one of the great ports of America? And why 
Baltimore people were sure that they had a far better chance to catch, 
the trade of the West than other sea-coast cities ? 



development of transportation 155 

Trade Routes in 1790 

THE red man's TRAILS: THE RIDGE ROADS 
AND THE VALLEY ROADS 

If you had been a trader with the Indians near Pittsburg in 1790 
how could you have brought your furs most easily through to the 
Eastern cities ? Study a physical map in your geography to try to tell. 

We have said that the first trade routes of the white man followed 
the red man's trails. And do you know that the red man also fol- 
lowed the trails made through the forests and over the hills by the 
four-footed animals? The elk, deer, buffalo, and other wild beasts of 
the forests naturally took the easiest ways through the dense woods. 
They followed the streams through the valleys and they travelled the 
open bare ridges of the mountain ranges. 

For these were the easiest routes. Water seeks easy channels down 
through the mountains, and in general it takes the natural slopes. 
If you were going on a long tramp through rough country you could 
be sure to find the easiest climbing if you followed the paths along the 
banks of streams and rivers. That is what primitive uncivilized men 
and wild beasts did in their wanderings — they looked for the "passes" 
that pierced the chains of rugged old mountains and they sought the 
places of navigable rivers. But why did they seek the tops of the 
mountain ridges, you will ask? Because there the woods were less 
dense, open spaces abounded, and the trails were swept clear by the 
heavy winds. Then, too, the rains did not wash rough places in the 
ridge trails as they did down in the valleys. 

"Here lay the easiest paths for the heavy, blundering buffalo and 
the roving elk and moose and deer. Here, high up in the sun, where 
the outlook was unobstructed and signal fires could be seen from every 
direction, on the longest watersheds, curving around river and swamp, 
ran the earliest travel routes of the aboriginal inhabitants and of their 
successors, the red men of historic times. For their encampments and 
towns these peoples seem to have preferred the more sheltered ground 
along the smaller streams; but, when they fared abroad to hunt, to 
trade, to wage war, to seek new material for pipe and amulet, they 
followed in the main the highest ways."^ 

And so, many hilly communities of our country have their "Ridge 
Roads. ' ' Does your town have one ? Find out, if you can, how it grew 
up there. 

THE APPALACHIANS: BARRIERS TO TRANSPORTATION 

Study the relief map of Fig. 15. This pictures for you 
the difficulties that the pioneers faced who broke through the 



iHulbert. Archer B.- "The Paths of Inland Commerce," pages 14-15. Yale 
University Press. Ney Haven, Conn. 



156 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

Appalachians. Do you see how like a barrier the Appalachian 
mountain chain isf How it shut in the people on the Atlantic 
Coast and prevented them from either getting through to the 
valley of the Ohio or bringing through the trade that they needed so 
badly? At the northern end of the range in New York State lie the 
Adirondacks and the Catskills. The Berkshires, running up through 
Connecticut and Massachusetts and Vermont with the Green Moun- 
tains of Vermont, effectually shut off the New England States by 
themselves. Very few passes are there through these western moun- 
tains of Massachusetts. 

This has been a very serious handicap to Boston and other New 
England cities for it was almost impossible in early days to bring the 
freight of the west through to Boston. About 1800 Boston, too, was 
trying to find a way to build roads and canals through the mountains 
by which the trade of northern New York State and the Lake Erie 
region could be shipped to Boston instead of all going to New York 
and Baltimore and Philadelphia. Surveys and plans were made for 
canals through the mountains from the Hudson River to Boston ; but 
all failed. The engineers said emphatically that it was impossible to 
cut through the great highlands of the Berkshires, — that it would cost 
more than it was worth in trade ! They did succeed 50 years later, 
however, in putting the Hoosac Tunnel through the mountains so that 
the Boston and Maine Railroad has had direct connections with the 
West. 

Just as Nature set obstacles in the way of east and west trade for 
New England, so it also provided some fine cheap north and south 
highways and routes — the Connecticut River and the easy slopes of 
eastern New Hampshire. And so the pioneer built his roads north 
and south up the river valleys and later the engineers ran the railroad 
lines of the Connecticut Valley and the Boston and Maine railroads 
up the same easy grades to Montreal and to the trade of the northeast. 
That was New England's one easy outlet from the west: the long 
roundabout northern route by way of the St. Lawrence River and 
Montreal and down the Connecticut River Valley; thence by easy 
stages easterly and southerly to Boston. 

To (he Teacher: In doing these lessons have the 
pupils look through their geogTaphies to find pictiu-es 
of the "lay of the land" and of life in the different 
regions discussed. Our final editions will be pro- 
fusely illustrated. Expense prohibits a larger num- 
ber of cuts than is necessary for clear presentation 
of the matter under discussion. 

WHICH CITY HAD THE BEST ROUTE TO THE WEST? 

New Yorkers were the ones most favored by the natural lay of the 
land. Do you see how the Appalachians flatten out at the northern 



DEVELOPMENT OF TRANSPORTATIOK 157 

end, where the Catskills are? Do you notice what must be a broad 
valley running east and west across the state from Buffalo to Albany ? 
What is the name of the river that runs through it? Do you generally 
find a river running through each valley? Why? 

Look again at the physical map in your geography. In what region 
is the greatest number of large cities of New York State? Do you 
see any relation between the way the cities are located and the lay of 
the land in New York State? Write a statement in your notebook 
which will tell what you think the relation is. 

Now study again the relief map of Fig. 15 and the physical map 
of your geography. Scan the Appalachian mountain chain from Penn- 
sylvania to Alabama. 

Write in your notebook a list of the "passes" you can find in the 
mountains where it would be easiest to pierce the barrier. Which one 
would Philadelphia use? Which one would the people of Virginia 
use ? W^hich one did the people of the Carolinas probably seek in going 
into Tennessee and Kentucky and from there to the Ohio country? 

kxi;rcise 

In your geographies turn to a physical map of eastern United 
States, in which the elevation of the land is shown in colors. Locate 
the lowest stretches of land from Ncav York City to Pittsburg. They 
will probably be colored-in very dark — either green or brown. The 
darkest spaces on the map will stand for the lowest land — that nearest 
the elevation of the sea. The different heights of land are shown by 
telling the number of feet ' ' above sea level. ' ' 

1. Take as a problem to decide from the map where you would 
build a road or a canal or a railroad from New York City to Buffalo. 
Suppose .you Avere living in De Witt Clinton's time — say about 1800. 
Imagine that you knew Mr. Clinton very well. (He was a leader in 
building the Erie Canal.) You had been working with him in his 
endeavor to get people to build roads and canals from New York to 
Buffalo, so as to enable your own city (New York) to bring freight 
from Lake Erie more easily and more cheaply. Study the physical 
map very carefully and then trace on a blank map of the United States 
the general route that you would follow. Do you think you would 
follow a straight line from New York to Buffalo? W^hat markings on 
the physical map help you to decide ? 

2. Next, suppose you are a merchant living in Philadelphia in 
1800 and are very anxious to have transportation to Pittsburg im- 
pi'oved. Remember there are no railroads and no canals. Goods are 
being brought by pack-horse and freight wagon. Draw on the map 
the route that would be cheapest and easiest to build a canal. Was the 
New York to Buffalo route a straight line or nearly so? Is this Phila- 
delphia to Pittsburg one more straight than that? Why? 



160 



WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 



It took from two to five weeks to make the trip through the Appa- 
lachians. After days and days of climbing;, the travellers would finally 
reach the summit of the last mountain and view in the distance the 
broad silver stream, the Ohio River, which they knew would bear them 
with comparatively little toil to the far-away lands of Ohio, Indiana, 
Illinois, Missouri, or the southern lands of Louisiana and Mississippi. 

And then what a different life began ! Camp was made near Red- 
stone, Pittsburg, or whatever settlement they decided upon for their 
half-way stopping point. (Pittsburg was a settlement in 1800 of sev- 
eral hundred houses.) The men of the westward party pitched in and 
built flat boats for the trip down the river. In the early days — 1790 
and for a few years more — the pioneers themselves felled trees in the 
forests and built great flat boats. But no sooner was it seen that 
people would keep coming over the mountains and would want boats 
to go down the great river than men began to go into the business of 



^. 


;-,^ 4 ic 


m- 



Mississippi fiat-boat with superstructure of rough huiiber. Craft 
of this sort were used by families which intended to use the hnnber 
for house building after reaching their destinations.^ 

building them to sell to the travellers. If the traveller had the money 
to spare, he was glad to buy his house-boat already built for him. 
They cost from $50 to $100 — a large sum of money in those days. 

And now on the Ohio and "Massasip" rivers (for that was what 
the rough river-men called the Mississippi) appeared such a great 
variety of craft — log canoes, "pirogues," skiffs, batteaux, keel-boats, 
arks, flat boats, Kentucky boats, New Orleans boats, broad-horns, 
barges, and finally, the passenger packets. All built to float down 
stream — too heavy and unwieldy to be propelled up the rivers. They 
were guided by one or two long sweeps, or oars, at the ends or sides. 

Note how they were made. Of course the log canoe was the sim- 
plest, just a great log hollowed out and pointed at the ends. It was 
cheap, too, costing only two or three dollars. It was a speedy boat 
but would hold only two or three people. 



'Reprinted with permission of Bobbs-MerriU Co. from Dunbar, op. cit., Vol. 
I, page 292. 



THE FLAT BOAT ERA 



161 



Then there was the skiff, a flat-bottomed planked boat, costing 
about five dollars. And larger than this- — in fact, large enough to 
accommodate a -whole family — was the broad batteau, worth from 
twenty to fifty dollars. 

The boats which they called pirogues were long and very wide, 
sometimes 40 feet long and six to eight feet wide, which might even 
carry a whole family and its household goods. One could buy a 
pirogue for a sum ranging from five to twenty dollars. 

For swiftness and ease of guidance, these pioneers had the keel- 
boat, with an extra heavy plank about 4 inches square, nailed to its 
bottom to prevent the bottom from breaking when it struck obstruc- 
tions in the river. But in spite of the heavy plank people were often 
left stranded in the middle of the river from running onto a tree 
sticking end-up in the river bottom. Obstructions, dangerous ones, 
were frequently encountered and it was common to drift down around 
the bend in the river and find a party with their boat agi-ound on a log. 




Notice the jiioiieer comlitioiis in llii-^ putuic Tins is tiie way 
great river cities started at shallow touhuii ]>!aces. The flat-boat 
with a sail is one of the first city i'elr^ -boats, hke tJiose used in New 
York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other coast towns until 
about 1800.1 

In such cases the new-comers would tie up at the shore and the men 
M'ould follow the friendly rule of the road to help out strangers in 
trouble. Sometimes the stranded boat could be pulled off and mended 
in a few hours; sometimes it took days. Occasionally the boat had 
to be left and the luckless party taken on in the other boat. 

But the boats that were made by the tens of thousands in those 
years were the flat-boats. They were sometimes called arks, broad- 



iReproduced with permission of Bobbs-Merrill Co. from "A History of 
Travel in America." by Seymour Dunbar. Vol. I, pag-e 4 4. 



162 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

horns, barges, packets, etc., but they were all "flat-boats." Curious 
thmgs they were, combinations of "log-cabin, fort, floating barn-yard 
and country grocery, — quaint boats, into which men, women, children, 
horses, pigs, chickens, cows, dogs, kegs of powder, dishes, furniture, 
boxes of provisions, and farm implements were all loaded and jumbled 
together to float down the river to somewhere." Do you wonder they 
were called arks? 

These great house-boats, in which whole families lived for months 
at a time, were often from 75 to 100 feet long, 15 to 20 feet wide, and 
from 3 to 5 feet deep. They were made of very heavy timbers and 
cost about a hundred dollars for lumber alone. But thousands of 
them went down the Ohio iji those days when the redskin was opposing 
the coming of the pale-face to live on his hunting grounds. Attaclcs 
by Indians were frequent and all the protection possible on the water 
was needed. 

The Ohio flat-boat travel began in the 1770 's and grew very slowly 
at first. In the year 1780 it is believed that about 300 Kentucky flat- 
boats went down the river. This would be about equal to one each 
day. Probably about the same number went down during the next 
few years. Then, beginning in 1788, came the great rush. It is esti- 
mated that dm-ing the next thirty years a million pioneers floated 
down the Ohio, in search of lands and homes in the wilderness. They 
built boats, floated with the current of the rivers, pushed themselves 
along by poles, and lifted sails to catch the breezes. 

A very large number of these people were bound for Pittsburg, 
and there they settled; and as a result Pittsburg rapidly grew into a 
large city. What do you suppose was the reason so many went there? 
Look at a map showing the region around Pittsburg and see if you can 
tell. Do ,you notice that the Alleghany River, the Monongahela River, 
and the Ohio River all join at Pittsburg ? Would you say that people 
went to Pittsburg to settle because it was a good-sized city, or that 
they naturally landed there because travel by these three different 
rivers made it easy? Do you think it was the city which attracted 
settlers, or did the city grow as a result of the large number of settlers 
who came there? 

Of course all the westward bound travellers did not settle in Pitts- 
burg. Some of them went on down the Ohio to the Mississippi and 
down the Mississippi to the Gulf. This made a long, long trip — took 
as much as a month. 

Now if they wanted to go back, say to Columbus, as they fre- 
quently did, would they go by boat ? No, indeed. To row one of their 
boats up the Mississippi and Ohio rivers — well, it was just impossible. 
So they would sell their boat, buy horses, and return by land over what 
was known as the Tennessee Trail. It sometimes took months to make 



THE FLAT BOAT ERA 



163 



the trip. Today you could get on a train in New Orleans in the 
evening and after a good sleep in a comfortable berth in a Pullman 
car have breakfast, read the paper, and about noon find yourself in 
Columbus. What a change in the speed of travel ! 

Here are some stories that will give you an idea of how people 
lived on these trips and the kiiid of people the boatmen who always 
lived along the rivers were. 

"At night, as they drifted on the dark waters, their loopholes 
often spurted jets of rifle fire, while women loaded the hot rifles of 
the men in the flickering light of pine knots held by the silent chil- 
dren, and watched for the answering shots of red enemies through the 




Travellers on top of a flat-boat. During a long voyage, last- 
ing for weeks or months, the principal diversions of the emi- 
gTants were stoiy telling, singing, and dancing on the upper 
deck to the accompaniment of the universal fiddle. A ladder or 
flight of steps led down into the interior.- 



mist that hid them. By day, on a more kindly voyage, some backwoods 
genius on the cabin roof would touch the resin to his fiddle-bow and 
send the wild strains of a hoe-down to the wooded shores and bacK 
again, while the family mule gave vent to his emotions in a loud hee- 
haw, the pigs squealed, the children shouted and danced to the melody 
of the combined orchestra, and the women rolled up the bedding, 
milked the cow, hung out the wash and killed a few chickens for 



iReproduced with permission of Bobbs-MerriU Co. from "A History of 
Travel in America," by Seymour Dunbar, Vol. I, pag-e 275. 



164 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

dinner. Perhaps no other craft that ever moved on land or sea pro- 
vided such episodes and contrasts, such diverse pictures of tragedy 
and revel, as did the flat-boats in which the vast host of floating pil- 
grims travelled the interior rivers of America from about 1788 until 
as late a date as 1840/ 

"Any way served as long as they made visible pi-ogress over the 
waters bearing them into the new country. And as they moved they 
fought, sang, fished, swore dreadful oaths, quarrelled among them- 
selves, aided one another when in peril or distress, brought new chil- 
dren into the world, and buried their dead in haste that they might 
not lose an hour of the precious daylight or a favoring wind. 

'By the latter part of the year 1788 a human flood was upborne 
by the flood beneath. Flotillas of fantastic craft dotted the surface of 
the winding rivers. New settlements sprang up along the banks of 
the Ohjo. . . . 

"Practically all the invaders who so suddenly poured over the 
mountains and launched themselves headlong into extensive voyages 
on the Ohio and Mississippi systems of rivers were lacking in knowl- 
edge of the country through which they were to journey. Those who 
came from cities and towns of the East were also ignorant of the manj'^ 
expedients by which wilderness life, especially on a river trip, could 
be made more safe and easy. As a consequence they sought advice 
and aid before embarking, and generally made arrangements by which 
several flat-boats were to travel together as a little fleet. The head 
of the family or party would also, if possible, hire a frontiersman to 
go with the boat and take charge of its navigation. Through these 
conditions there was created a class of men known as western boatmen, 
who became familiar with all the vagaries of the rivers and fertile in 
every device that might be helpful in an emergency. The professional 
boatman of the West spent years in travelling down the streams and 
back again, and became one of the most interesting figures of frontier 
life the needs of the country have ever produced. 

"He was of the restless type that in every period of American 
development has done the unusual and dangerous thing just for the 
love of doing it; who has never been satisfied unless each new da}' 
brought some unexpected event; who has only been happy when he 
could always keep moving. . , . Work no other man could do was 
his one luxury. In physical make-up the typical boatman was tall, 
thin and sinewy. His immobile face was tanned to a dark brown, and 
from above high cheek-bones and a long nose two dull gray eyes gazed 
blankly. In his normal state he was silently waiting for something to 
hap])en, knowing quite well it certainly would. When the bomb of 
circumstance exploded, the human creature was on that dot of time 
transformed into a combination of rubber ball, wildcat and shrieking 



THE FLAT BOAT ERA 165 

nitanac. . . . After the tumult he siilDsided again into his listless 
lethargy of waiting, the monotony being endured by chewinj? tobacco 
and illustrating the marvelous accuracy with which he could propel a 
sti-eam of its juice for any distance up to fifteen feet. 

"The costume he wore was as picturesque as his personality, and in 
essential features was so widely adopted as to be almost a uniform. 
It consisted of a bright red flannel shirt covered by a loose blue coat — 
called a jerkin — that reached only to his hips, and coarse brown 
trousers of linsey-Avoolsey. His head covering was a cap of untanned 
sku', often with the fur side out; the universal moccasins clad his 
feet, and from a leather belt hung his hunting-knife and tobacco 
l)onch. 

' ' Still a third distinguishing feature of the professional flat-boatman 

was his . . . vocabulary In any . . . backwoods 

assemblage of those years an expert in native speech could have cor- 
recily told the kind of work done by most of the men in the gathering 
siniply hy listening to their talk for half an hour. When a boatman 
wanted to say that some act had been performed with celerity he 
declared it had happened 'quicker nor a alligator can chaw a puppy.' 
To be silent, in his phraseology, was to be 'dumb as a dead nigger in a 
mudhole.' If he warned a companion to run he did it by shouting 
'Start yer trotters,' ... A difficult thing to do was 'harder nor 
climbin' a peeled saplin', heels uppard.' To move very swiftly was 
to 'travel like a nigger in a thunder-storm.' " 



' ' Guided and helped by men like these the emigrant families traveled 
down the rivers and absorbed useful knowledge on the way. The 
routine of daily life on a flat-boat did not differ much, except in the 
actual Avork of navigation, from that of the cabins on land. At one 
end of the boat was a large space often called the parlor, or sitting- 
room., Avhere the travellers ate their meals and the children romped 
between times. It was furnished with chairs, a table, a looking-glass, 
and such other articles as the women needed for their work. The 
kitchen was adjoining, A stove was set up there, and its pipe pro- 
jected through the roof. A narrow passageway extended down the 
center of the boat for a considerable part of its length. In front the 
hall opened into the parlor, and on each side of it were several small 
bedrooms. At the rear of the boat was another large compartment for 
the storage of provisions, furniture, and agricultural implements, and 
still farther astern was the abode of the live stock. The rooms in those 
parts of the craft devoted to the use of the family were created, as a 
rule, by partitions of linsey-woolsey or chintz cloth, that sometimes 
flared up from contact with a candle or pine knot and left no parti- 



166 WESTWAED MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

tions at all. In more elaborate boats some rooms were divided by thin 
wooden walls. The enclosure for horses, pigs, chickens, or other farm 
animals on board was separated from the rest of the space by a barrier 
of planks. Such were the general arrangements of a covered Kentucky 
boat." 



"Mutual help for those in distress was the iron rule of the road, 
except for the river pirates. They were a small class of white outlaws 
who roamed the waters to fatten on disaster, and a limping or crippled 
boat was juicy prey provided it did not contain enough men or fire- 
arms to fight them off. . . . 

"The most notorious group of river outlaws was one with its head- 
quarters at a point on the Ohio about twenty-five miles below old 
Shawneetown, in Illinois. The town itself consisted of a few log 
cabins originally built by the French, standing a hundred rods back 
from the river and inhabited by a rough population composed of 
French, Indians, Spanish, half-breeds, and Americans, some of whom 
were no doubt participants in the robber traffic. On the shore of the 
river at a point in question and in a little cave in a rock cliff over- 
hanging the water, was the chief gathering place of the pirates when 
they were about to engage actively in the deeds of their profession. 
The place became known as Cave-in-Rock, and was long a spot ap- 
proached with apprehension and passed with relief. It was the habit 
of the pirates of Cave-in-Rock to kill those on board a richly laden 
boat, provided an attack on it could safel.y be attempted, and then 
send the craft on to New Orleans or some other town on the lower 
Mississippi in charge of a crew picked from their own number, who 
would dispose of its contents and return with the proceeds. There 
were so many boats descending the river ; so many emigrants changing 
their plans and voyaging to destinations other than they had at first 
announced ; and the means of communication in the new country were 
so unreliable, that a boat and its occupants could easily vanish from 
the sight of those most interested in its welfare. When such a thing 
happened the disappearance was attributed to a disaster of travel, 
whereas it might have been due. and occasionally was procured, by a 
more sinister cause." 



To the Teacher: Althoi;gh there was a good deal 
of brigandage on the rivei"s in the early days, it was 
not as pervasive as legend portrays or even as trav- 
ellers of the time believed. Almost the only book 
dealing exclusively with the question is by Emerson 
Bennett. — Mike Fink: A Legend of the Ohio. While 
the incidents of the story are fanciful, the atmosphere 
and manners are pictured without undue exaggera- 
tion. 



THE FLAT BOAT ERA 167 

"Periodic navigation of rivers by boats did not first appear in the 
West. That development in the history of human transportation in 
America took place on the Delaware some time in the second half of 
the eighteenth century. Keel-boats were the type of craft originally 
used as regular water conveyances for the public, and the accommo- 
dations they afforded were of very scanty extent. All they guar- 
anteed to do was to float and move onward with whomsoever en- 
trusted himself to that means of progress. The boats making regular 
trips usually started early in the morning like stage wagons, and 
when the time of departure was near at hand the patron [i. e,, the 
captain] blew- loudly on a horn to summon his intending passengers. 
A man who embarked for passage eitlier carried his own blanket and 
rolled up in it at night or else got off and slept in some neighboring 
farmhouse, resuming his voyage when the horn again tooted at early 
dawn. At a later day the Delaware River and other eastern passenger 
keel-boats were transformed into barges by the addition of house-like 
structures designed to furnish greater comfort and shelter. With 
these cabins there also appeared rude sleeping bunks, one above an- 
other, and thus developed the first germ of the future sleeping-car. 
But the traveller still carried his own bedding. . . , 

"The armed keel-boats took about twelve days to go from Cin- 
cinnati to Pittsburg, stopping at Limestone, Marietta, and a few other 
settlements on the way. They and the similar unarmed craft soon to 
follow were the best means of moving through the interior until the 
jear 1811, and remained the only reliable up-stream conveyances on 
the rivers until 1817. But almost all water travel beyond the Alle- 
ghany Mountains was in the opposite direction— down-stream and 
toward the Vest. Few of the immense number of emigrants who 
floated to the new settlements in the Northwest territory during the 
first generation of the influx ever returned to the East again. They 
took up government land for home sites and farms, and in less 
than twenty years the country had been overrun. The woods of Ohio 
and the groves and prairies of Indiana and Illinois were in their turn 
dotted with log cabins; territorial and state governments laid out 
roads between the principal towns ; Conestoga wagons and stage- 
coaches appeared on land routes of travel and the Ohio Valley had 
ceased to be a frontier. New arrivals still came drifting down the 
river in ever increasing numbers, but they found established com- 
munities and an organized society, although it was a rough and 
boisterous one."^ 



iThese extracts on river boats and river-traveUing are taken from Dunbar, 
Sevmour: "A History of Travel in America," Vol. I, pages 272, 291-294, 301- 
302, 304. 



XVI. MAP EXERCISE: DO YOU KNOW AMERICA'S 
PRINCIPAL RIVERS AND LAKES 

As you read the accounts of travel on the rivers of the United 
States you will need to have a clear picture in your mind of exactly 
where the principal ones flow. Can you call up a picture of the 
Hudson? the Connecticut? the Missouri? the Platte? the Ohio? 
the Potomac? the Mississippi? The Columbia? the Colorado? the 
St. Lawrence? 

Can you distinguish each of the Great Lakes — Superior? Ontario? 
Huron ? Erie ? Michigan ? 

Locate each of these rivers and lakes on the wall map. 

To the Teacher: In order that the pupils will have 
clear ideas of the location of these rivers and lakes, 
give the following test at this time. Pass out blank 
mimeogi-aphed maps of the United States on which 
the rivers and lakes are traced. 



Before you take this test read the directions all the way through. 
Follow the two steps of the test as given here. 

First step : On a blank mimeographed map of the United States 
letter the names of each of the rivers and lakes given in the foregoing 
list. 

Second step : Exchange papers with a neighbor. Open your geog- 
raphy to a map which shows the rivers and lakes. Correct your neigh- 
bor 's map and w-rite the name of each river or lake which was incor- 
rect on the left margin. 

The teacher will pass around among the pupils and check up the 
correction of the maps. Return the paper to the one who made it. 

To the Teacher: The number of rivei's and lakes 
each pupil had correct should be recorded in your 
grade book for comparison with the scores made a 
week hence when the test is repeated. 

As a result of this test, you now know which rivers and lakes you 
need to study so that you can place them accurately. How many got 
all right? Those who located all correctly do not need to do the next 
exercise; they can spend their time on other work. 



MAP EXERCISE: RIVERS AND LAKES 169 

To the teacher: Pass out another blank mimeo- 
i>raphed map of the United States. 

First step : Open your geography to the same map as before. 
Study very carefully the position and outlines of the rivers and lakes 
you missed. See what the course of each one is. 

Second step : Now close your eyes and try to see the picture. Can 
you see its route? the direction it takes? general position in the 
country ? 

Third step : Open your eyes and compare the picture you had 
with the map picture? Study the map carefully. Now close your 
eyes and recall it again. Is it clearer than before? Look once more 
at the map annd repeat this process until you are sure you have the 
positions clearly in mind. 

Fourth step : Close the geography, and on the clean mimeographed 
map make the picture. When you have finished, compare your work 
with the geography map. If it is incorrect this time, you must go 
through the whole process again, and again, until you succeed in 
getting it right. 

Fifth step : Do the same thing for all of the rivers and lakes j'ou 
missed in your test. When all are correct have the map 0. K. 'd by 
the teacher. 

Sixth step : Bind the two test maps into your note-book for safe- 
keeping. 

In about a week we will repeat this test to see if you can locate 
the rivers and lakes correctly. 



XVII. THE story' of tllE RIVER STEAMBOAT 

"Wasn't Uncle George a pilot on steamboats on the Mississippi 
River, Grandpa?" asked Nancy Graham, as the famih' sat on the 
porch of the Graham home after supper. 

"Yes, my brother George piloted boats on the Ohio and Mississippi 
for years. Many 's the story he has told me about his life on the river 
boats. Why do you ask, Nancy?" 

"Well, for our history work tomorrow at school we have to find 
out all we can about how the steamboat came to be made and who 
did it and how steamboats came to be used on our rivers. T have 




Unsr SlKAMIiJAT liVKU UflLT T 



AKUY PASWiNIi 



Constructed by John Pitch, and finished April 16th, nS.S. Cylinder eiphteeu inches in diameter, 
epeoii tight milos per Iwnr in smooth water. The following year this boat was ruii to Burlington 
regularly aa a passenger boat 



looked and looked through histories and I cannot find enough to make 
my report. Can't you tell me about it. Grandpa?" 

"Yes, I think so, but I have a fine book, too, that tells about it. 
Between the stories I can remember that your uncle used to tell and 
that book, I am sure you can learn enough to tell your classmates 
about the steamboat. 

"Your Uncle George was a good deal older than I, so I never had 
the fun of riding his boat, but I have heard him tell his experiences 
many a time. 

"You see steamboats had not been in use very long when he was a 
young man. Men had been trying for a long time to make boats go by 



Picture reproduced with permission of the Bobbs-Merrill Company. Dun- 
bar. Seymour: "A History of Travel in America," Vol. I, page 251. Indian- 
apolis, 1915. 



THE RIVER STEAMBOAT 171 

steam. After our Revolutionary AVar two men each built a steamboat — 
John Fitch and a man named Rumsey, John Fitch's boat was made 
to go by" a series of little paddles attached to a steam engine, and he 
ti-ied it out on a river in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. About the same 
time Rumsey made a different kind of a steamboat. To propel it, a 
stream of water had to be taken in at the bow or front of the boat and 
pumped out of the rear end, or stern. 

"All kinds of schemes were tried. Ordinary boats were experi- 
mented with to see if they could be hitched to a steam engine so that 
the engine rather than man would do the work of moving the boat. 
You will remember that the early rivermen hitched oars, poles, and 
even long lines to their boats and hauled them upstream, themselves 
walking along the shore. One man built a boat with paddles that imi- 
tated the movements of the fins of fishes; another copied the Indian 
paddles, and still others hitched paddles to their boats which worked 
like the poles and oars of the flat-boats. 

"John Fitch was the man who worked hardest on this new method 
of travel and he was the first one who saw the possibilities of using it 
on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers; though he did not live to build 
boats for these rivers. 

"Another man who built early steamboats was Robert Fulton. He 
and Robert Livingston, his partner, w'ere both interested to find swifter 
means of carrying people and freight on our waterways. Fulton was 
keen enough to realize that to keep a boat running by power a good 
engine was necessary. Now the best steam engines were made by 
AVatt, the English inventor, but England was so afraid that other coun- 
tries would copy Watt's invention that she passed a law which forbade 
Englishmen to ship steam engines out of the country. It took several 
years to persuade her to permit Fulton to buy one of the engines ; 
but he finally succeeded in getting one to bring to this country. 

"Fulton then built a boat called Clermont. See the picture of it. 
In 1807 the Clermont made the trip from New York to Albany in 
thirty-two hours, at the rate of about five miles an hour. Today river 
boats can make the same trip in less than ten hours. 

"The boat that Fulton built looked very queer to the natives. 
(Bring me that first book on the second shelf, Nancy, will you, and 
I '11 read you something. ) Listen to this : ' Some imagined it to be a 
sea-monster whilst others did not hesitate to express their belief that 
it was a sign of approaching judgment. What seemed strange in the 
vessel was the substitution of lofty and straight smoke-pipes, rising 
from the deck, instead of the gracefully tapered masts . . . and, in 
place of the spars and rigging, the curious play of the walking-beam 
and pistons, and the slow turning and splashing of the huge and 
naked paddle-wheels, met the astonished gaze. The dense clouds of 



172 



WESTWARD iMOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 



smoke as they rose, wave upon wave, added still more to the wonder- 
ment of the rustics . . . On her return trip the curiosity she excited 
was scarcely less intense . . . fishermen became terrified, and rode 
liomewards, and they saw nothing but destruction devastating their 
fishing grounds, whilst the Avreaths of black vapor and rushing noise 
of the paddle-wheels foaming with the stirred-up water, produced 
^reat excitement.'^ 

"Now it was these two men, Fulton and Livingston, who saw that 
it was possible to ship freight and carry passengers in steamboats. 
You might say they adapted earlier inventions and commercialized 
steamboat-building. You know my father and grandfather floated 
their crops down to St. Louis and New Orleans by flat-boats, keel- 
boats, and on rafts. The great trouble with this method of shipping 
was in hauling such boats upstream. My grandfather used to sell his 
boats for lumber at the end of the trip and walk home. 



r 



Wi: 



j'^^£i''^.t^ 



C ' E H M O N T . 



"Now the steamboat could go up the rivers. You can see at a 
glance what its effect would be from the fact that it made trade so 
much easier and quicker. It was the cause of thousands of people 
fi'om the East moving into Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee, 
The demand for steamboats rapidly increased, and inland ship-building 
became an important and profitable industry. Ship-builders had to 
work night and day to keep up with the orders. During the year of 
1840, nearly 5000 steamers passed Cairo, Illinois. A boat did not last 
as long as it does today because there were many snags in the rivers, 
trees floating or embedded, and they were not protected against fire as 
they are now. 

"Your Uncle George used to say that a boat would pay for itself 
in a season. He ran between Galena, Illinois, and St. Paul, Minne- 
sota, but his company used to have their boats built at Pittsburg. 



'Hulbert, Archer B.: "The Paths of Inland Commerce," pages 113-114. Yale 
University Press, New Haven, 1920. 

Picture from Dunbar, Seymour: "A History of Travel in America," Vol. I, 
page 325. The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, 1915. 



THE RIVER STEAMBOAT 



173 



The first one he piloted— in the 30 's— cost around $25,000 or $30,000. 
Just before the Civil War the company that he worked for built much 
bigger and faster ones. He used to say that his best boat — the BeJIc 
of St. Faul^eoHt about $56,000. 

"My father used to have to pay about 50 cents for every 100 
pounds of corn or wheat that he shipped to St. Louis on one of these 
boats. Passengers travelling, say from Galena, Illinois, to St. Paul, 
Minnesota, paid about $11.00 for a cabin and about $5.00 to ride on 
the deck and sleep on the floor. Today the fare on the day steamers of 
the Hudson River Line from New York to Albany is $5.25. From 
Galena to St. Paul is twice as far, and costs twice as much, $10.50. 
But although the fare now is actually only 50 cents less than it was 
then, it is really much less because money had a great deal more value 
then than now. One boat could take in as much as $20,000 in a 
month from fi-eight and passenger service, which was quite a change 
from flat-boat davs. 











0ML" 



A Mississippi steamer^ 

"Of course it cost a good deal to run one of these boats. The crcAv 
were paid what Ave would call excellent wages. Many of them got more 
than the men who work at these jobs today get. For example, your 
Uncle George used to get $500.00 a month for six months' work. He 
got more than the captain. ' ' 

"But why. Grandfather? I thought the captain got the most." 
"No, he had much more to do than the captain. The pilot had to 
do all the work of guiding the ship through the narrow channels in the 
river. He had to be on the lookout for snags, for changes in the cur- 



ilteproduced with permission of Bobbs-Merrill Co. from "A History of 
Travel in America," by Seymour Dunbar, Vol. II, pa&e 402. 



174 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPOBTATION 

rent and channels. You know the Mississippi is a bad river for boats 
because it changes its channels so frequently. I have read interesting 
stories of some of these changes. It is said that one man who owned 
a farm on the banks of the lower Mississippi near the stat€ boundary 
line woke up one morning and found that the 'great river' had cut a 
new channel and that his farm was no longer in his native state. Isn 't 
that a peculiar way to move from one state to another? 

"You remember reading about La Salle in your history books, 
don't you, Nancy .^'' 

"Yes, I remember. He was the French explorer who floated down 
the 'Mississippi River and found its mouth. He called the country 
there Louisiana, after his King, Louis XIV." 

"Yes, well do you know that if he were to follow today the route 
of the Mississippi as he knew it two hundred years ago, he would have 
to walk, for that channel is nearly all dry land now ? 

"Our government has hundreds of expert navigation officers at 
work on our navigable rivers. Every year they search out the changes 
in the channels and report them to- captains and pilots on the rivers 
so they will be able to guide their boats properly. 

"The boats even in those days took soundings all the time. They 
did it like this : two men would take either a long line with a piece of 
lead fastened to one end of it or a long pole, and while one held the 
line or pole, the other would call up the measurement. It was from 
one of these river calls that Samuel Clemens, a river pilot on the 
Mississippi, took the name 'Mark Twain' by which he is best known. 
It was a leads-man's call, signifying two fathoms or twelve feet. It 
meant safe water .and was a pleasant sound to the pilot's ear on a 
dark night. The pilot always listened carefully for these soundings, 
because if the channel had shifted since the last trip, the boat was 
apt to get into serious trouble if the pilot didn't know about it." 

"Doesn't a pilot get awfully tired of making the same trip so many 
times?" interrupted Nancy. 

"No, indeed, child. He must make it a good many times to be a 
good pilot. Mark Twain had to pay five hundred dollars to learn to 
be a pilot, and learning was no easy matter. Piloting is a very exact 
science. 

" "HoAv on earth am I ever going to learn it?' Mark Twain asked 
his pilot-teacher. 

" 'How do you follow a hall at home in the dark? Because you 
know the shape of it. You can't see it.' 

" 'Do you mean to say,' continued Mark Twain, 'that I've got to 
know all the million trifling variations of shape in the banks of this 
interminable river as well as I know the shape of the front hall at 
home ? ' 



THE RIVER STEAMBOAT 175 

" 'On nn' honor, you've got to know them better than any man 
ever did know the shapes of the halls in his own house,' returned the 
pilot. 

' ' I have heard it said that the engineer who ' drives ' the fast Penn- 
sylvania Express between Harrisburg and Pittsburg has to watch for 
and read over 1400 signals which tell him whether the track is clear 
or not. Well, those trees, houses, bluffs, turns and windings of the 
sliore line were part of the signals of the .pilot of the old river steamer. 
He had to learn just where each one was so as to know it was coming 
before he got to it. 

"Ruu and get 'Old Times On the Upper Mississippi' in the book- 
case, Nancy, and I w^ill read you something. Here is what Mr. Merrick, 
himself an old riverman, says about the pilot.' 

" 'Compared with those days, the piloting of today, while still a 
marvel to the uninitiated, is but a primer compared to the knowledge 
absolutely necessary to carry a steamboat safely through and around 
the reefs, bars, snags, and sunken wrecks which in the olden times 
beset the navigator from St. Louis to St. Paul. The pilot of that day 
was absolutely dependent upon his knowledge of and familiarity with 
the natural landmarks on either bank of the river, for guidance in 
making his way through and over innumerable sandbars and cross- 
ings. No lights on shore guided him by night, and no "diamond 
boards" gave him assurance by 'day. . . . Only a perspective of 
bluffs, sometimes miles away, showing dimly outlined against a leaden 
sky, guided the pilot in picking his way over a dangerous crossing, 
where there was often less than forty feet to spare on either side of 
the boat's hull, between safety and destruction. 

" 'The skilled steersman, combining his art with his exact knowl- 
edge of the bottom of the river, will give his boat only enough wheel 
to lay her into her "marks," closely shaving the points of reefs and 
bars, and will "meet her" so gradually and so soon as to check the 
swing of the jack staff at the exact moment when the marks are 
reached. ... It is this delicate handling of the wheel, which is the 
difference between the artist and the athlete.' " 

"How could a man steer a boat in the dark. Grandfather?" in- 
quired Nancy. 

"Nothing but long practice in piloting enabled him to do it." 

"And what are diamond boards?" 

"Nowadays they have 'big boards' on the river banks and they 
indicate dangerous points just like the lighthouses do; at night they 
use searchlights. But in the old days the pilot had no such things to 
help him. It was difficult work according to what Uncle George used 



iMerrick, George B.: "Old Times On the Upper Mississippi," pages 78 and 
100. Arthur H. Clark & Company, Cleveland, Ohio, 1909. 



176 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

to say. The river on a moonlight night looked far different from 
what it did when only the stars were out. And when it was raining 
or misty, still other things had to be watched — the shadows of the 
bluffs, for instance, for sometimes passengers would thhik they were 
headed straight for the bluffs on the shore only to find that it was 
the way the river appeared when the shadows were on the water." 

' ' Didn 't they run into things and didn 't the people get drowned 
lots of times?" 

"Yes, it was a common thing for seventy-five or a hundred people 
to be drowned on river steamers in a season. Boats would catch on 
fire, too, and the people might be burned or drowned before the pilot 
could beach the boat." 

"Many times this happened because the pilots loved to race one 
another. It was just like two men driving fast automobiles today and 
not wishing to take the dust of the other man's car. What happens? 
A race, and sometimes a bad accident. Well, those pilots liked their 
boats — thought more of 'em than they did anything else — and they 
just couldn't bear to see another boat pass them. So when one boat 
tried to do so the other boat would pile on more wood — they burned 
wood on those early boats — and sometimes the crew would have to 
'play' a stream of water over the deck to keep the boat from catching 
fire from the sparks and pieces of wood that dropped out of the 
chimneys. It was dangerous business, but races were held just the 
same — danger or no danger. One of the most famous of these races 
was the race between the Gr-ey Eagle and the Itasca in 1856, when 
each tried to beat the other to St. Paul with the news that Queen 
Victoria of England had sent a message by the new ocean telegraph — 
cable — to our President. Both boats averaged 13 miles an hour. 

"This book tells us of one narrow escape from a cyclone. Were 
you ever in a cyclone? I guess not, Nancy, but you were near one 
once. Guess you remember that time. Well, the wind is a hundred 
times as strong as that terrible winter gale we were in. It is so strong 
that it uproots trees and blows houses hundreds of yards away. In a 
real cyclone country every house has a cellar into which the family 
runs when they see one of the terrible cyclones coming. You can tell 
them usually by the funnel-shaped clouds that appear in the west, 
and by the darkness just before the storm reaches you. Can you 
imagine what a cyclone would be on the river? There's a story in 
this book — told by a captain that was almost lost on account of one. 
Let me read it.^ 

" 'In 1871 I was running a towboat with coal barges. Twelve miles 
below Rock Island we were struck by a cyclone. It took the cabin clean 
off the boat, and of course the pilot house went Avith it. My partner 



^Merrick, George B., op. cit., page 122. 



THE RIVER STEAMBOAT 177 

was with me in the pilot house, having seen the storm coming up with 
a heavy wind, so he came up to help me keep her in the river. At 
this time we were pushing a lumber raft down stream. Both of us 
were blown into the river. My partner got hold of the raft and 
pulled himself out, but I went under it. I thought that it was the 
end of piloting; but Providence Avas with me. I came up through 
an aperture w'here four cribs of lumber covered a little hole not over 
three feet square. My partner saw me and ran and pulled me out, 
and we both got back to the dismantled hull of our boat. I could 
not help myself as I was too near strangled. The force of the cyclone 
must have stopped the current of the river for the time or I never 
would have come up where I did. The shock and wetting laid me 
up for six months.' 

"Such was the life of the pilot, but I started a long time ago to tell 
you how much it cost to run one of these boats. Besides the pilot 
and the captain, there was quite a crew; the chief engineer and assis- 
tant engineers, the chief clerk and assistant clerks, the steward who 
managed the dining room, and about 50 deckhands to handle the 
boat, keep it clean and load and unload freight. 

''As I have said, the boats burned wood and it took about 25 cords 
a day. This bill alone was $1500 or $2000 per month. 

"Food to feed the passengers cost $75.00 or $100.00 a day, and these 
river boats served pretty good meals. Two cooks were employed, one 
to make the pies and cakes and fancy desserts and the other to do 
what we call the 'plain* cooking. One meal on each trip was 'very 
special' — an elaborate course dinner wdth many extra delicacies. The 
deck crew ate what was left after the passengers had had their meal. 

' ' Most boats carried an orchestra or singers ; on the others the 
negro deckhands furnished plenty of music. Your uncle used to 
sing some of their old songs. One went like this: 

De captain stands on de upper deck ; 

(Ah ha -a-a-ah, Oh, ho-o-o-o-ho !) 
You nebbir see 'nudder such gentlehem, I 'spec ; 

(Ah ha-a-a ah. Oh ho-o-o-ho.) 

De pilot he twisses the big round wheel ; 

(Ah ha -a-a-ah. Oh, ho-o-o-o-ho!) 
He sings, and he whissels and he dance Virginia reel, 

(Ah ha-a-a-ah. Oh ho-o-o-ho), — 

"They were a happy-go-lucky crowd, but they never made more 
than one trip on the same boat. Just as soon as they were *paid- 
off' they made a dive for shore to spend their earnings on a gay 
time. But it was easy to hire a new crew. All the chief clerk needed 
to do was to go on the wharf and shout 'men wanted' and a swarm 



178 WESTWAED MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

of negroes who were 'broke' would jump toward him. After he had 
gathered a large group about him, he would throw forty or fifty 
tickets into the crowd. Each negro who got one would present it at 
the gang-plank of the ship and promptly be hired for the trip." 

"Why did he throw the tickets at them. Grandfather?" 

"Your uncle used to say that it was to give the negroes an equal 
chance. Sometimes there would be 300 men struggling for a job 
and the captain believed that the men who could manage to get 
tickets when they were thrown would be the huskiest 'hands' and 
make the best men for the crew. 

"Between April and October these boats would make a trip a 
week from Galena to St. Paul. Your uncle had a share in some of 
the boats he piloted. I have heard him say that it was not uncommon 
for a boat to take in $100,000 in passenger fares and freight money 
in a season. Expenses were about half of this, so there was often a 
profit of $50,000. 

"I traveled on one of these 'floating palaces' myself — went from 
Cincinnati to New Orleans for about $25.00. Before the steamers 
were in use it cost over a $100 to make the trip. The boat that I 
M ent on was a fine one ; they don 't have much better ones on the 
river today. It had three decks, and its side paddles were set back 
of the middle of the boat so that it got the benefit of each swell on 
the river. This helped it to go faster than the first steamers. It had 
a fine cabin with good beds — just as good as I sleep in here at home — 
and a fine big dining room. People used to dance in the dining room 
evenings. After the dance those who could not afford a cabin or 
didn't buy their tickets in time to get a cabin slept on the floor of 
this room. It was a good job for the steward to get several hundred 
of these sleepers on the dining room floor up in the morning so that 
the tables could be set and breakfast served. 

"The meals as I remember them, were good. We had vegetables, 
meat, fish, chickens, and plenty of everything. There were negro 
cooks, and how they could cook ! They gave us tea, coffee, and river 
water to drink. I remember an old fellow travelling from Albany, 
New York, to Westport, Kansas. He wouldn't drink the river water; 
said he had heard it was dangerous to drink it, and that we would 
certainly get sick from it. For himself he had brought from home a 
gallon jug of water. In those days the water of the Ohio and the 
Mississippi above where the 'muddy Missouri' joined them was clear 
and perfectly safe to drink. 

"Just before the Civil War I heard a riverman say that there 
were about 1000 steamers on the Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri rivers, 
but after the war the railroads practically drove them out of business. 
You see, on many parts of the river the water froze and for several 



THE RIVER STEAMBOAT 179 

months at a time the boats couldn't run. Besides, the railroads could 
carry people and freight faster and cheaper so that on that account 
the steamboat lost its place after the war. Your Uncle George 
realized it when he retired in '69, and he put his money into rail- 
roads. Then he lost most of it in the panic of '73. But as long as 
he lived he never forgot and never tired of telling of the great days 
on the river. "^ 

To the Teacher: Mark Twain's Life on the Missis- 
sippi is an excellent description of this period of 
steamboat travel on the Mississippi. It is suitable 
for your cla.ss to read. 

1. Find out from school histories or from the encyclopedia some- 

thing about one of the following men: John Fitch, James 
Rumsey, James Watt, Robert Fulton. 

2. Bring in to the class any interesting stories or pictures you 

can find which help to illustrate this method of steamboat 
travel in America. 

3. How had people and freight been carried be^re the invention 

of the steamboat? 

4. Imagine yourself a passenger on a river steamboat in 1850, 

and write a description either of the boat on which you 
travelled, or of the life on board. Or, imagine yourself a 
river pilot and describe an experience or two in a brief 
essay. Be ready to read your paper to the class. 

5. What were these river steamers used for? 

6. Show how important they were in developing America between 

1820 and 1860. 

7. What cities developed because of the river steamboat ? Look up 

the important cities along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. 
Are they all important today? Explain. 

8. See if you can find out about the proposals today to improve 

our rivers and lakes. In the Readers* Guide to Periodical 
Literature, look up references to 

a. Building levees to wideu the channels of the Missis- 

sippi and Ohio rivers. 

b. "The Lakes to the Gulf Plan." 

Read the accounts referred to and be able to report to the class on 
at least one of them. 



iThis story is in great part an adaptation of the facts about river steam- 
boats as brought out in Hulbert, Archer: "The Paths of Inland Commerce." 
Yale University Press. New Haven, 1920. and Merrick, George B.:' "Old Timea 
On the Mississippi,"' Arthur H. Clark & Co., Cleveland, Ohio, 1909. The latter 
contains the reminiscences of a former steamboat pilot and is a very interest- 
ing description of life on the river steamboat between 1825 and 1860. 



XVIII. AN EPIDEMIC OF CANAL BUILDING 
1817-1850 
Compare the map of Fij?. 15 with the map of Fig. 26. 




The black lines show where canals had been 
built by 1840. Look at Fig. 10. How far west 
was the frontier thein? In what part of the 
country were canals built? What do they ap- 
peal' to connect? 

What are the chief differences that you see in the two maps ? What 
does the map of Fig, 26 tell you of the changes that took place in 
transportation between 1790 and 1840? Study it again, and write in 
j^our notebook the most important conclusion that you can think of 
concerning the general direction which the canals followed. Why do 
you think the canals were built in that direction ? 

(fiU in) 

Which of the cities — New York, Baltimore, or Philadelphia — do 
you imagine was the first to be joined to "the west" by means of 
canals? Read this next account and see if vou can tell why. 



epidemic of canal building 181 

The Erie Canal, 1817-1825^ 

De Witt Clinton, a prominent New Yorker, afterAvards Governor 
of the State, did more to stir up the people of New York State to 
getting the trade of the Lake Erie region than any other man. One 
time when he was trying to persuade the Legislature to make a canal 
through the northern part of the State, he asked this question : 

"Do you know that the merchants of Montreal sell their goods in 
New York State for less than the merchants of New York can ? ' ' 

The New Yorkers in the Legislature were indignant at this ; many 
said it was not true. Thej^ had people look up the matter and they 
found Clinton was right ! But how could he be ? Montreal was so 
far away ! 

The secret was water transportation all the way from Montreal ! 
To ship goods by water did not cost l/20th as much as to send them 
by pack-horse or wagon ; the freight was such a large part of the 
whole price. That was especially true in the days before they had 
built canals and railroads and motor trucks and fine motor highways. 
Even today when we have all these kinds of transportation it really 
costs less to ship by water than by railroad, — except where the rail- 
roads own the steamship and canal lines. (Why should the owner- 
ship of boat lines by railroads make any difference?) 

Trace on the wall map of the St. Lawrence River and northern 
New York region, the dift'erent routes by which goods could be brought 
all the way by water to New York State and also to New York City. 
Tell in a few sentences in your notebook which you think would be 
the cheapest. P]xplain why. 

At this point you need to study very carefully the relief map of 
Fig. 15. If you had been a farmer living in western New York State 
about 1800, by what route do you think you would have shipped goods 
to Philadelphia? To New York City? To Baltimore? Would you 
have used boats or wagons? What rivers would have been most 
helpful ? 

In 1800 the rivers shown on the relief map were very busy places. 
"Arks" went down on the high water of the rivers, made high by the 
spring thaw of the melting snows in the Alleghem^ Mountains. "From 
two to five hundred barrels of flour were carried in one of these craft." 
The map will show you that Philadelphia and Baltimore were getting 
most of the trade of "the west." They were nearer and rivers flowed 
down right to where they were located. In fact one of the most impor- 
iant reasons why these cities grew up where they did was ? 

Now as New Yorkers saw this great trade going more and more to 
their rivals, they tried in many ways to make transportation from the 
Lake Erie region to New York City better. We have read how they 



182 



WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 



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EPIDEMIC OF CANAL BUILDING 183 

made better roads and how as early as 1807 steamboats were running 
up to Albany. But the difficulty was to transport goods from Buffalo 
to Albany. 

Then came the proposal to dig a canal through the whole way — 365 
miles ! People said it was impossible, that there was so much digging 
to be done they could not pay for it. The people of Philadelphia and 
Baltimore also wanted canals, and so engineers w-ere sent over the 
different routes to find out how high the land was in order to determine 
how much digging would have to be done. 

From Albany to Buft'alo looks very level on the relief map of Fig. 
15. Do you notice the straight broad Mohawk Valley? From Phila- 
delphia or Baltimore to Pittsburg, on the other hand, the country was 
much more mountainous. 

Fig. 27 gives a side view of the elevation of the ground between 
the different places when canals were proposed. 

The figure is a ''profile" or "elevation" chart. It shoAvs how high 
the hills were through which the workmen would have to dig their 
■v^ay in building three different canals, the Erie in New York State, 
the Pennsylvania Canal in Pennsylvania, and the Chesapeake and Ohio 
in West Virginia and Maryland. 

Which canal do you think was the easier to dig? Tell why. 

We will study the whole of Fig. 27 later. But just now we need 
to examine that part w-hich deals only with the Erie Canal. 

BXE^RCISIE 

Study Fig. 27 and then fill in these sentences : 

The Erie Canal connected and 

It was approximately miles long. 

is about feet higher than Albany. Albany 

seems to be on about the same level as New York City. Five prin- 
cipal New York cities which the canal went through are 



and The steepest rise of land seems to be 

between and Here, in 

a distance of about miles, the water in the canal drops 

feet. 

Ships Must Sail in Water That Is Nearly Level 
Have you ever sailed in a boat in a rushing river? Have you 

been in a canoe in a ''rapids" where the waters swirl and drop very 

abruptly ? Is it very dangerous ? 

From the time when men first learned to row and sail boats on 

water they have known that only level bodies of water are safe ones. 

But the waters of Lake Erie were 564 feet higher than those of the 

Hudson River near Albany ! True enough, the two were 365 miles 



184 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

apart, so the drop would not be an extremely steep one like the great 
Niagara Falls. There the water drops 144 feet at one time. And of 
course no boats can go over such falls and not be wrecked and all 
the people in them killed. In fact any boat larger than a small row- 
boat would not be able to manage even a "falls" of one or two feet. 
The water must he practically level for safety. 

So when Joshua Forman (1808) and Gouverneur Morris (1810- 
1820) proposed to actually "dig a ditch" from one to the other — the 
people laughed and said it was impossible. Even when the surveyors 
and engineers were at work, even when the plows and scrapers were 
cutting away the soil, even when the trees and rocks were being 
blasted, and pulled out and the great hole 40 feet wide and 10 feet 
deep was being made ready for the water, — even then the people 
scoffed and laughed and ridiculed the whole scheme. De Witt Clinton 
had been so persistent that they called it "Clinton's Ditch." Clinton 
and other far-seeing men of the times saw clearly what a great money- 
saver it was going to be. In those days, to carry a ton of produce 
a hundred miles by wagon cost $32.00 ; to carry a ton a hundred miles 
by water cost $1.00, — l/32nd as much. So they figured costs and went 
ahead with their digging while the doubters jeered. 

They had a hard time to convince the Legislature, but they finally 
succeeded. There's a story that illustrates how legislators can some- 
times be swung around to support a scheme by one certain argument, 
when no other will convince them. This story shows how powerful the 
fear of war is. Chancellor Kent of New York State is said to have 
asked Acting-Governor Taylor early in 1817 if he thought there would 
be another war soon with England. (The War of 1812 had just 
closed.) 

' ' Yes, sir, ' ' was the reported reply. ' ' England will never forgive 
us for our victories, and, my word for it, we shall have another war 
with her within two years." 

The Chancellor rose to his feet with determination and sealed the 
fate of the great enterprise in a word. 

"If we must have war," he exclaimed, "I am in favor of the canal 
and I cast my vote for this bill."^ 



Two ways were possible to build the canal. One way was to dig a 
gently sloping ditch, gradually dropping down — only about a foot and- 
a half drop to each mile of distance — from Buffalo to Albany. This 
was Gouveneur Morris's suggestion. But to do this meant cutting 
terriffic holes in the earth at many places. 



iJIulbert, A. B. : "The Paths of Inland Commerce," pape 128. Chronicles of 
America, Vol. 21. Yale University Press. 



EPIDEMIC OP CANAL BUILDING 185 

Look at the upper profile of Fio-. 27 again. On it draw a straight 
line connecting Buffalo and Albany. This straight line will show what 
would have been the level of the ditch at each town. How deep would 
the sides of the canal have been at Syracuse? x\t TJtica? (Can you 
tell from the vertical scale at the left?) Can you imagine a great ditch 
only 40 feet wide, with the sides rising a hundred feet in the air ? 
Do 3'ou think that one hundred years ago they could have dug such 
a ditch ? 

Even in 1904-1908, when the great Culebra Cut of the Panama 
Canal was made, the engineers had great difficulties. See if you can 
find pictures of the Culebra Cut and other parts of the Panama Canal. 
They will show you about how the cuts would have looked on parts of 
the Erie if Morris's suggestion had been followed. Of course in our 
time the engineers have invented steam shovels and other kinds of 
blasting and cutting machinery which make it possible to cut a hole all 
the way through a mountain — like that in the Panama Canal. But in 
1817-25 when the Erie w^as built, such a thing could not be done. 

So, the other way of getting water from one level to another had 
to be used. They had to build "locks" at all the steep places. 

HOW A IjOCK works 

Who in the class can draw a picture on the board to explain how a 
lock works? As we study about canal locks we must remember that 
the lock was not a new invention in 1817. Not at all. Holland and 
Italy, where much of the travel has to be done by water, had used locks 
for over 400 years. And even the ancient peoples before Christ had 
dug canals for irrigation and for turning power machinery. 



EXERCISE 

To the Teacher: Assign as a class exercise the 
task of finding- out fi-om the encyclopedia or other 
books how a lock works, and to get pictures of 
locks. We suggest tliat you have a class discussion 
of it, letting several draw sketches on the blackboard 
to illustrate their ideas of ''how a lock works." 

Find out from any books you can how a lock Avorks. Draw in your 
notebook a sketch to explain it. Be ready to draw this again on the 
blackboard and to explain it to the class. 



On the Erie Canal, when it was finally completed in 1825, there 
were 65 locks. Some of these were not very high, only a rise or fall of 
4 to 6 feet. But some were quite high. Between Syracuse and Utica 
the land was so high that a series of several locks had to be used one 
after another. 



186 



WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 



So, by using locks the engineers were able to dig a canal that would 
not be too expensive. And in spite of all the ridicule they succeeded 
and in 1825 — only seven years after they had thrown out the first spade 
full of dirt — the water of Lake Erie flowed into the Hudson River. 
To celebrate this great event two k'Cgs of Lake Erie water were taken 
through on the first fleet of boats and Governor Clinton himself emptied 
them into the New York harbor. He did this as a symbol of the 
joining of the two waters. 

Why Did Some People Oppose the Building 
OF THE Erie Canal? 

Do you think that the Erie Canal helped business between the 
East and West? It did, indeed. The whole freight business was 
changed by it. The cost of shipping decreased very much, as Clinton 




A "wire" ferry. A flat-boat pulled across by a heavy wire 
attached on both shores.^ 



had predicted it would. Philadelphia and Baltimore began to lose 
the trade of the lake regions. The canal made it a great deal cheaper 
to send produce along Lake Erie or Lake Ontario by steamboat (just 
beginning to be used), and then by canal barge to the Hudson, and 
down the Hudson to New York. 

But there were some business people who did not want to have the 
canal built because it would hurt their business! These were the 
freight handlers at the ''carries." At places like Schenectady and 



'From Dunbar, "A Hisloiv of Trav* 



America. ■' Vol 



EPIDEMIC OF CANAL BUILDING 187 

Wood Creek, these freight men had built up quite a business, loading 
and unloading boats at the shallow places in the rivers. Boats had to 
be towed up Wood Creek and other streams by means of horses. 
P'urthermore, goods had been brought up to Schenectady from Albany 
by wagons, and there loaded on boats. So the "freighters" were 
doing a thriving business. If the canal was to succeed their business 
would be ruined, for most of the freight would not be unloaded or 
hauled at intermediate points. It would go right through to New York 
L'ity by barge. So these people were very angry and did what they 
could to prevent the building of the canal. But history shows us 
that when a new kind of transportation or machinery is really going 
to make living cheaper and more comfortable, the people will bring 
it about. And so the freight handlers were not able to defeat the 
building of the Erie Canal, 



Towing a canal boat on the western level stretches of the Erie Canal.^ 

There is another fact about the freight business and "carries" and 
boating that is important for us to remember. Schenectady really 
grew up where it did, largely because in those early days of the 
1700 "s trade had to stop at the shallow places in the river. Here was 
a "carry" — a place in the stream where boats and goods had to be 
"carried" around to the deeper M^ater. And so gradually a trading 
post grew up right at the "carry." Some enterprising man set up a 
little store there, people began to stop there, and slowly settlers came 
in and built homes. Finally a town and a city grew up. That is the 
way many of our towns and cities have grown up — at stopping places 
on waterways. W^e shall see more examples of this later on. 



^Prom Dunbar, ibid. VoL II. 



188 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

Do 3'ou think that onh' freight was moved on the Erie Canal? 
No indeed. Passengers went by "packet boat" from New York City 
to Buffalo in six days! The fare was about $18.00. How long does 
it take today to make this trip? About how much does it cost? 

One could travel 5 miles an hour on the packet-boats, no faster. 
We think nothing today of our trains rushing along 70 miles an hour. 
And aeroplanes go near miles an hour. 

(how many miles?) 

It really was a picturesque 350 miles of travel. Part of the time 
they would move along- through the fifty-mile stretch of level country 
in the level MohaAvk Valley from Utica to Syracuse. See the picture, 
page 187. Later they would have the interesting experience of sailing 
in the canal across and above the Genessee River. For at that point 
the canal was built in a great aqueduct over the river! In fact we 
must remember that the eiigineers did not actually use any of the 
rivers of the entire region although they dug the canal along in the 
same general direction as the Mohawk and others. Sometimes the 
X>assengers would look down on the tops of trees, and at other times 
would be wonderingly gazing up at rocky walls where cuts had to be 
blasted through great embankments. 

Philadelphia Also Built a Canal: 
The Pennsylvania Canal, 1834 

Study Fig. 27 again. You have studied now how hard it was to 
dig canals even where the extreme elevation was only a few hundred 
feet high. Can you imagine that Philadelphia was really sending 
canal boats through to Pittsburg in 1834 — only nine years after the 
Erie Canal was finished? 

They really were. No sooner had the Pennsylvania people seen 
that the Brie Canal was to be a real success than they too began to 
"dig their way" to Pittsburg — then the center of trade in the West. 
Were they going to let New York City merchants capture all that 
valuable trade? They certainly were not. So in spite of the moun- 
tjiins and the terrific drop of the Juniata River on the east, and the 
Conemaugh River on the west, they set about the conquering of Na- 
ture's obstacles to transportation. 

Find a physical map which shows the region between Philadelphia 
and Pittsburg. The canal followed the gradual slope of the Schuylkill 
River to Reading, then cut across country fairly straight west as far as 
the Susquehanna. Following that river for a short distance, it paral- 
leled the rushing Juniata as far as the mountains would permit — to 
Hollidaysburg. At Hollidaysburg the canal was a thousand feet above 
sea level — an unheard of engineering feat ! But how to pass through 
the mountains from Hollidaysburg to Johnstown — that was the 
problem. 



EPIDEMIC OF CANAL BUILDING 189 

Only about forty miles in length — but a mountain wall fifteen hun- 
dred feet high intervened. About half way between — around where 
Altoona is now — the AUeghenies rose to a height of nearly twenty-five 
hundred feet, over a thousand feet higher than Hollidaysburg. How 
do you suppose they accomplished the feat of sending canal boats 
over these peaks? You would never guess. 

They built five great travelling inclined planes up the sides of the 
mountains and pulled the canal boats out of the water and over the 
hills on land ! Each plane was 200 feet high and about 2300 feet long. 
They were raised and lowered by horse-power in those early years 
of canal boating. Later steam engines were used. 

In the autumn of 1834, "the staunch boat, Hit or Miss, from the 
Lackawanna country, owned by Jesse Crisman and captained by Major 
Williams, made the journey across the whole length of the canal. It 
rested for a night on Allegheny Summit 'like Noah's Ark in Ararat,' " 
wrote Sherman Day, "and descended the next morning into the 
Valley of the Mississippi and sailed for St. Louis. "^ 

Baltimore Tried to Build a Canal, Too: 
The Cpiesapeake and Ohio Canal 

Baltimore saw what was happening — New York City and Philadel- 
phia were taking her ti-ade away by their canals. She wanted one, too. 
But great was her disappointment at the report of the engineers who 
surveyed over the proposed route up the Potomac to Cumberland — 
then over to the Youghiogheny River and down the slopes to Pittsburg. 
The engineers said it would be impossible to get enough money to put 
through the expensive digging. They pointed to the great mountain 
heights in the AUeghenies and said that it would cost between a quar- 
ter and a half a million dollars. Such a sum the State could not raise. 
Of course in these days half a million dollars is a small matter to a 
large government. The Panama Canal, finished in 1908, cost the 
United States more than $500,000,000 and we raised the money very 
easily. But to raise money nearly a hundred years ago when most 
of the states were just being formed and the country was new, was 
very difficult. Baltimore people were disappointed again when they 
heard that the people of Maryland and Virginia were satisfied to build 
a canal along the Potomac to Cumberland and to stop there at the 
base of the mountain. Thus, they would rely on wagon and pack- 
horse from there to the Ohio Valley. Not to have a direct water 
connection with Pittsburg would ruin Baltimore's trade with the 
West — this was the thought of the business men of the city. 

They did all they could to find a way to cut through the mountains. 
The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal was dug to Cumberland, Railways 



'Hulbert, A. B. : "Paths of Inland Commerce." page 140. 



190 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

were built later over the mountains. Even a tunnel was built foui 
Liiles long through the highest peak. See Fig. 27. But try as they 
would no way was found to cut a ditch through the great mountain 
barrier, and Baltimore had to turn to other kinds of transportation in 
her attempt to regain the Ohio trade, most of which was going through 
the Erie Canal to New York City. Baltimore people were plucky and 
would not admit that they were beaten. 

The next lesson will tell you how they were the first to use another 
new way of transporting goods across the country. Can you guess 
what that way was? More than any other, this new way made our 
country grow rapidly after 1840 and become the leading industrial 
nation of the world. 



SUMMARY 

You have now read how the people of America built canals in the 
first third of the 19th century. Re-read the whole account and answer 
the following questions in your notebook : 

1. Which was cheaper in 1800-1850, land or water transportation? 

2. See if you can find out which is cheaper today. 

3. Tell how the "lay of the land" determines where canals can 

be dug? 

4. Which city of the Atlantic Coast has become largest? Explain 

the reason. 

5. Why did New York City succeed when Philadelphia and Balti- 

more failed in building canals? 

6. See if you can find out how America compares with European 

countries in the way she uses water transportation. Does 
she have as many canals? Does she use her rivers as Ger- 
many and France do? 



XIX. RAILROADS : RAPID AND CHEAP TRANSPORTATION 

To the Teacher: This discussion of the way our 
railroads were built is brief, because the subject of 
railroads — their concentration into systems, and their 
connection with big financial enterprises — is treated 
in detail in Pamphlet No. 2 of the Eighth Grade 
Series. The principal aim here is to connect the 
early railroad development (1830-1850) with the 
movements to build roads and canals; to bring out 
the problems and geographic conditions facing the 
early builders; and to give the pupils a feeling for 
the modes of early travel. 

In 1830 it took nearly four days to go from Albany to Buffalo by 
the Erie Canal. Now one can leave Albany at eight o'clock in the 
evening, go to bed in a comfortable sleeping car, and get up early 
the next morning in Buffalo. 

In 1828 it took six weeks to send a messenger to Andrew Jackson 
in Tennessee to let him know that he had been elected President of 
the United States. Nowadays the newly-elected President reads the 
details of his election in his morning newspaper the day after he is 
elected. Telephone, telegraph, rapid printing, and the 60-mile-an- 
hour express train make it possible to send to his door, less than twelve 
hours after the voting stops, the story of how it was accomplished in 
many of the far distant districts of the country. 

The busy business man can leave his office in New York at two 
o'clock in the afternoon, board the Twentieth Century Limited at the 
Grand Central Station at 2 :45, and arrive in Chicago the next morning 
at 9:45. He can transact business for several hours, leave Chicago 
early the same afternoon, and be back in his office the middle of the 
next morning. 

How is all this possible ? There is just one answer : a marvellously 
rapid and — everything considered — cheap and safe railroad system. 
Today America is the greatest industrial nation of the world. She has 
a vast territory and immense resources. But Russia and China have 
far greater areas and resources, according to the estimates of engi- 
neers. Yet Russia could not begin to compare with the United States 
industrially, even in 1914 before the World War and the Russian 
Revolution. 

Why? Railroads! America is the greatest railroad nation of the 
world. Her broad agricultural plains are tied to her busy industrial 
cities. The Atlantic Coast is connected with the Pacific Coast. The 



192 



WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 



ore of Minnesota iron and copper mines can be dumped, at small cost, 
nearly a thousand miles away in the yards of Pittsburg's great steel 
manufacturing plants. Cotton from southern Georgia is spun into 
yarn and woven into cloth in the northern Massachusetts mills. Oregon 
apples and California oranges and grape-fruit are served at breakfast 
tables in Chicago and New York. And what makes it all possible? 
For the most part, railroads. To some extent, it is due to water trans- 
portation on our Great Lakes and up and down our coasts, for we 
have developed a large lake and ocean steamship trade, but this trade 
is small in comparison with railroad trade. 

One-fourth of all the miles of railroad track in the entire world 
are in the United States — practically as much as in all of the countries 
of Europe put together. 




One of the latest Pennsylvania freight locomotives, 1921.^ 
Fig. 28 



Comparison of Railroads in 1830 and in 1922 

Do you think the railroads of 1830 were a good deal like those of 
1922? Did they have huge steam locomotives, the long steel cars, the 
heavy steel rails laid on high, well-drained rock "road-bed" such as 
you see in Fig. 28 ? 

Would you like to see a ''movie" of railroad locomotives? The 
pictures of Figs. 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, and 28 show a century of 



'From "The Americas," Feb., 1921. National City Bank. New York City. 



RAILROADS 



193 




This was an attempt at a locomotive by Stephenson in 1825. 
Fig. 29 




This is the "Tom Thumb," an engine built by Peter Cooper in 1S29. 

It actually Avent ! 

Fig. 30 



iFrom "The Americas," Feb., 1921. National City Bank, New York City. 



194 WESTWAED MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

pi-ogress in steam locomotives. Study them successively before you 
read the descriptive matter between. 

Now turn again to Fig. 29, and see how crude the locomotive was 
in 1825. What funny wheels and rails and ties it had! Would you 
think the queer thing would pull anything? Well it did sure enough, 
but not very successfully. But the "Tom Thumb" of Fig. 30 begins 
to look "something like," doesn't it? It was built by Peter Cooper 




This is a sail car tried out on the Baltimore and 
Ohio Raih-oad in 1830.^ 
Fig. 31 

in 1829, and was more successful as an engine. Of course, neither of 
these locomotives could pull very heavy loads — at least nothing like 
the Pennsylvania freight engine (Fig. 28) can pull, for fifty heavily 
loaded freight cars with that kind of engine is common. 

These pictures give you some idea of how crude the first railroad 
engines were. But remember that the first trains were not drawn by 
locomotives at all. The people were so eager to find quick and cheap 
ways of shipping things that they tried all sorts of curious experi- 



'From "The Americas," Fed., 1921. National City Bank, New York City. 



RAILROADS 195 

meiits. Some even laid down wooden planks, like rails, and tried to 
"sail" ears on them ! Pig. 31 is a picture of one of these. They found 
it was possible to move cars in a high wind on a perfectly level smooth 
flanking. But of course they soon gave up the idea of making much 
use of sails, for high winds were rare, while hills abounded; and it 
was impossible to draw heavy loads up even a gradual slope. 

But the most common way was to build tracks of stone strips or of 
planks and use horses or mules to pull cars along them. Ask your 
father and mother if they remember the horse-cars of 1880 and 1890. 
For fifty years — even today in some parts of the country — horses are 
still used to pull cars along town and city streets. Unless you have 
seen these cars, you will think the idea very curious, but until two or 
three years ago horse-cars were still used in some places. 

Even in a few districts of the great city of New York, with its 
five millions of people, its rushing railways, elevated in the air and 
running along scores of tracks below ground, its surface lines and its 
automobiles, horse-cars were used until very recently. You can see 
every kind of "passenger transportation" in the city of New York! 

The first horse-drawn cars were used in mines, as they still are 
today in many mines. Narrow tracks, commonly of stone or plank 
(not of steel like the present ones) were laid down about three feet 
apart, and little cars with coal and iron ore were pulled along them. 
They had these horse-cars in the mines in England way back in the 
1700 's. 

But, once the inventors found out how to make power by steam, 
the locomotives improved very fast. Compare the next four pictures, 
Pigs. 32, 33, 34, and 35, with Pigs. 29, 30, and 31. What important 
differences can you find in the locomotives — in their shape, their 
wheels, the tracks, the cars? What changes had been made even 
by 1831 ? By 1838 ? 1861 ? 1888 ? By 1921 ? 

The picture of Fig. 36 shows you that the inventors were also look- 
ing out for the comfort of passengers. By 1852, when the car shown 
in the picture was built, the seats were wide and comfortable. A 
rather attractive looking interior, don't you think? 

In all these accounts of railroads one of the most important things 
to remember is that the inventors were always trying to build better 
wheels and smoother and more lasting tracks. First they used wooden 
wheels. (See Pig. 29.) But these were rough and would not roll 
easily. There was too much "friction." (Can you tell what that 
means?) Worse yet, they wore out too rapidly. Next cam€ the time 
w hen they made wide tires of iron and fastened them on to the wheels ; 
they also fastened thin strips of iron to the wooden stone rails. (See 
Fig 30.) 



196 



WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 




This is the "John Bull," a locomotive 
Notice what great -diffei-ences had been i 
years.^ 

Fig. 32 



brought from England in ISol. 
lade in construction in only six 




The locomotive in this train was used about 1S3S-40. It has a lamp head- 
light but no cab for the engineer. Notice that they burned wood in those days. 
Wbat curious cars they had !- 

Fig. 33 



'From "The Americas," Feb., 1921. National City Bank, New York City. 
-From Dunbar. Seymour: "A History of Travel in America," Vol. Ill, page 
Bobbs-Merrill Company. 



RAILROADS 



197 




I'u-k out the cluviges made in loeouiutives t'lom 1840 to 1S61. 
This L^ a Rogers locomotive used in the Civil War.^ 
Fig. 34 




In 1888 this Erie hjcomotive was the biggest in the country. 
Find the changes that had been made in twenty-five years; also those 
made in the next thirty years.^ 
' Fig. 35 

'From "The Americas," Feb.. 1921. National City Bank, New York City. 



198 



WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 



You see in those days of the early 1800 's the iron business was a 
very small business. "Iron workers" were very few and far between, 
and not at all like today when we have in America alone hundreds of 
thousands of steel and iron laborers. In 1800 forges and iron factories 
were very crude things indeed. The pioneers had little iron for tools, 
and it was difficult and expensive to get them. We will study in the 
next pamphlet how the great iron and steel business grew up in the 
last hundred years — especially the last sixty. 

They had trouble, too, in making the wheels run on the rails! Did 
you examine a car wheel and the rails in Figs. 33 and 34? Study 




This shows interior of a passenger car of ^fi^^2- 
FiG. 36 



)ne of the best types. 



how they were made in early days and how they are now. Notice 
that there is a "flange" on the inside of the wheel and that this runs 
against the side of the rail, instead of just on top, as in Fig. 32. If 
the flange was not there the wheels would run oft^ the track ! Did they 
do that in 1830? 

Other things gave them trouble, like the draining of the road-bed 
arid making the running surfaces smooth. Do you remember the 
stories of the difficulties of travelling in the Appalachian country in 
1750, before good roads were made? How travelling was one live-long 
ploughing thi'ough mudholes or pulling great burdens over rocky ob- 



'From Dunl 
Bobhs-Me 



idianapoli 



A History of Travel in America." Vol. III. page 



RAILROADS 199 

structions? In those days, too, they found it necessary to do the 
very thing railroad men try hardest to do — make the road-bed so porous 
that even in heavy storms th'e water will drain off. Do you remem- 
ber how thej' did it in road making- ? The English engineers, MacAdam 
and Telford, taught the road makers to put heavy stone at the bottom, 
sand or gravel or ashes on top of that, and still finer material on the 
wearing surface. 

So the railroad engineers have learned in recent years to do much 
that sort of thing. They have raised the tracks up on little embank- 
ments so that the water would run off easily. They have learned that 
it pays to put rock or gravel on the bottom— several inches deep ; then 
they tamp ashes or sand down on top. On this surface squared hard- 
wood logs called "ties,'' are laid every fifteen inches or so, and on 
these the heavy steel rails are spiked. But 90 years ago they simply 
laid rough logs down and fastened wooden and later light iron rails 
to them, draining the low places as best they could. In those days 
riding on the railroad was one continual bump, bump, bump. The 
joints did not fit well, and of course the tracks went up hill and down. 

It was almost impossible to do much "filling in" — much "grad- 
ing"" of the road-bed — although they did the best they could. This 
problem of seeking level grades was very important. It caused the 
first railroads in New York State to be built in the Mohawk Valley 
and not through the Catskill Moimtains. It sent the "Pennsylvania" 
winding around a thousand curves up the Juniata River through the 
Appalachians. For just like the buffalo and the red man, the pioneer 
and the canal builder before him, the railroad builder followed the 
banks of the rivers through the hilly country. He knew that the 
level of the waterway was probably the most gradual level he could 
find. 

What Routes Did the Railroads Follow? 

Study the map of Fig. 15 again. Look up in your geography and 
be ready to trace on the wall map the route of the railroads that be- 
came the Pennsylvania Railroad; those that became the New York 
Central system ; those that became the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. 

If possible, get some railroad folders from your local railroad depot 
and study the routes on these. 

Write in your notebook a statement which will tell the important 
things about the routes that the railroads followed. Did the engineers 
survey straight roads through the Appalachian Mountains? Did the 
mountains themselves have anything to do with the placing of these 
different railroads ? 



200 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

Why do you think they built railroad Hues from Albany westward 
to Buffalo before they built the Erie Railroad from New York City 
diagonally across New York State to Buffalo? 

The Pennsylvania Railroad from Philadelphia to Pittsburg is very 
winding ; many curves had to be laid out very carefully by the engi- 
neers. The New York lines from Albany to Buffalo are very straight. 
One travels miles and miles Avithout going around a curve. Write in 
your notebook the reason for this important difference between these 
two roads. (This is very important for it costs more to haul trains 
around curves than it does on straight tracks. Can you tell why?) 

By 1850, the railroads were still clinging mainly to the Atlantic 
coastal plain. Only with great difficulty had they been built through 
the Alleghenies. Here and there a few hundred miles had been built 
in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. No great continuous systems 
were in existence, however. Hundreds of little railroads, many ten to 
twenty miles long, dotted the map of the eastern half of our country. 
If one wanted to make a journey of 200 or 300 miles, he had to change 
trains several times. The little roads were built from town to town 
by private subscription. The owners of one were very jealous of the 
others. They would not make arrangements by which cars of one short 
line could roll over the tracks of others. 

Worse than that, the cars could not have been driven over more 
than the one road in the days of 1830 to 1850, because the rails were 
not laid the same distance apart! (The distance between rails is called 
the "gauge" of the track.) In 1850 there were eight different gauges 
ill use on American railroads ! Shortly after that, however, the owners 
made agreements, merged their lines and adopted the same "standard 
gauge" — namely, 4 feet S^^ inches between rails. When you see a 
"Canadian Pacific" or "Oregon Short Line" freight car pulling into 
the station at Portland, Maine, with produce shipped nearly 3000 miles 
from Portland, Oregon, over several different railroads, you can realize 
that this is possible — in part — because the rails and wheels have been 
laid the same distance apart. 

Study where the railroads of the United States were in 1910 (the 
map of Fig. 37). What are the most striking changes that have come 
about in the extent of our railroad system since 1850 ? 

What parts of the country are best supplied with railroads ? Which 
have the poorest railroad accommodations? Can you tell why this 
is so? 

Do most of the railroads of the United States go east and west or 
north and south? 

To what extent have the railroads of the Mississippi Valley fol- 
lowed the rivers? Was that true of the New York Central, Pennsyl- 
vania and Baltimore and Ohio? Explain the reason for this. 



►, 



RAILROADS 



201 




202 westward movement and transportation 

What Did the People Think of the Railroads? 

Did all the people want railroads the way the businessmen did? 
Not at all. The farmers did not like the idea, and did all they could 
to oppose them. They said the snorting of the engine would frighten 
their cows and horses as it chugged by on its painful journey. And 
doubtless it did, just as automobiles first frightened horses and caused 
many accidents. But horses, like people, get used to things, and 
nowadays — thirty years after the first queer "horseless carriage" — 
the horses pay no attention to humming motors that whizz by danger- 
ously close to their very heads. The farmers said, too, that the sparks 
from the smokestack would set fire to their hay and straw and build- 
ings. Doubtless they did occasionally— but in the main they didn't. 
The farmers used every argument they could bring to bear to prevent 
legislatures from granting ' ' franchises ' ' to build the roads. They, like 
many people today, were "conservative" — slow to change. They liked 
to do things as their fathers and grandfathers did. They laughed at 
the idea, in 1825, that one could propel a car by an engine in which 
you burned wood! They ridiculed the notion of building long rail- 
ways through the great stretches of mountains, just as men and women 
twenty years ago jeered at Langley, the dreamer, who speculated about 
conquering the air. Yet the dreamer who gave nearly a lifetime to the 
study and invention of the airplane achieved the impossible (for the 
Wrights simply applied what he had worked out) and today we fly 
from New York to Chicago, 900 miles, in ten hours! As you grow 
older, you will frequently observe how cautious people become about 
taking up new ideas. Some people think we are getting more pro- 
gressive in these days — ready to believe that almost anything can be 
done. But, well, we will study that more as we go along. 

Why the Canal Owners Opposed the Railroads 

Of course the canal owners opposed the railroads very bitterly. 
But it was not because they did not believe in them. They feared 
them. They foresaw exactly what actually happened later — namely, 
that the railroads would graduall}'^ take away their business and, 
except for the Erie Canal, finally drive them out of business alto- 
gether. The worst opposition the builders of the Baltimore and Ohio 
Railroad had was from the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company. 
The railroad men were forced to get permission from the Canal Com- 
pany to build their tracks along the Maryland banks of the Potomac 
River. This was the most level and cheapest place to build. The 
canal company would not give the permission, and for years a fight 
went on in the courts and in the legislature. They both began to 
build on the same day, July 4, 1828. For five years the canal people 



RAILROADS 203 

held the railroad back. Finally in 1833 the canal owners yielded a 
"right of way" "through the Point of Rocks — the Potomac chasm 
through the Blue Ridge wall, just below Harper's Ferry." But, notice 
how they feared the railroad ! They gave this concession only on the 
condition that the railroad should not huild beyond Harper's Ferry 
nntil the canal was completed and running boats to Cumberland! 

A Question About "Monopolies" 

Some people have said that the legislature of Maryland should not 
have given the canal company an absolute control over the valuable 
right-of-way up the river. Tt gave them a monopoly, they said, and 
so would prevent a needed improvement in transportation from going 
tljrough. That raised a most important question — one that has been 
discussed in America for a hundred years. When the toll-road owners 
w^ere given monopolies over certain roads, the people of Pennsylvania, 
New York, Maryland, and other Eastern states wrangled about it in 
their legislatures. When the canals and railroads were built, it was 
the same problem. In our day we are still fighting oil monopolies and 
sugar monopolies. In fact behind practically everything we do and 
wear and eat there is a human tendency to want to monopolize the 
manufacture or use of these things. 

We shall study the problem of monopoly many times in these 
pamphlets. Remember that there are always two sides to any such 
problem. In the days of the canal's opposition to the Baltimore and 
Ohio Railroad the canal owners said, "We came first; we chose this 
fine route ; we have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in the 
attempt to give the people a cheap way of transporting goods. Now 
you propose to take away our chance." 

The railroads replied: "Yes, but this land is not yours alone — it 
belongs to all the people. The land is a gift of Nature, like the water, 
the sky above us, and the air that we breathe. We represent the 
* people, ' too. We are trying to build a cheaper and more rapid way 
for shipping goods and for travelling. We are able to prove that we 
can do it. We ought to have the right to use even the same route that 
you do up the river bank — not crowding you out, of course." 

Others said this: "It isn't a question of whether the canal or the 
railroad came first. It's really a question of which can give the Amer- 
ican people the best transportation service." 

These are samples of the way the arguments ran. They sound 
very much like the arguments we hear in our own day over monopolies. 

Which arguments do you think are the best ones? How should 
we decide who is to use the great national highways and the vast 
resources upon which our lives depend ? 



204 WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND TRANSPORTATION 

The canal owners saw clearly what was bound to happen. The 
railroad trains were speedier than their plodding canal boats, even if 
not as cheap, and what the American people have always insisted on 
is speed and easy travelling. Many foreign peoples say of us that we 
overdo "speed" — that we do not take time to really live and enjoy 
things. We are in too much of a hurry to "get something done." 
What do you think about it? 

Be that as it may, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was finished 
to Wheeling, West Virginia, in 1853; the New York lines reached 
Buffalo in 1842; the Pennsylvania Railroad, begun in 1846, reached 
I'ittsburg in 1854. Such rapid progress gave sign that the railroad 
was to be America's hope of tying together a wide country by rapid 
and cheap transportation; not the canal. As the railroads increased, 
the amount of travel and shipment of freight on the eastern canals 
gradually dwindled, and finally on all but the Erie stopped practically 
altogether. The Erie, situated favorably in the Mohawk Valley, has 
lasted to the present time. Twice since 1825 it has been made much 
wider and deeper, so as to take bigger and bigger "barges" from the 
lakes to the Hudson. And now in our time, they are proposing to 
enlarge it still more and make it a "steamship" canal, so that ocean- 
going steamers can go clear through from Chicago to any port in the 
world. If this is done, the expensive loading and unloading at New 
York will all be saved. And we must remember that it costs more 
to load and unload than it does to haul the goods. 

EXERCISE 

1. In your notebook make a table which shows the railroad mileage 

of the principal countries of the world. (See books like 
the New York World Almmiac, or the Chicago Daily News 
Almatiac.) 

2. How does the United States compare with other countries in 

number of miles of railroad track? 

3. If you can find any books on railroad systems in your school or 

town library, look up maps which show the principal "sys- 
tems" of the country. We will study about these systems 
in the next pamphlet. 

4. It would be interesting to have different members of your class 

write to the large railroad companies asking for folders 
describing their systems. Try to get maps showing where 
the tracks go, and pictures to show the class the kinds of 
country along the way. These are the headquarters of 
some of the principal systems : 

New York Central Lines, New York City. 

Pennsylvania Railroad, New York City. 



RAILROADS 205 

Chicago and Northwestern Ry. Co., Chicago, 111. 
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Ry., Chicago, 111. 
Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Ry., Chicago, 111. 
Canadian Pacific Ry., Chicago, 111. 
Great Northern Ry., St. Paul, Minn. 
Southern Pacific Ry., Chicago, 111. 
Union Pacific Ry., Chicago, 111. 



XX. WE MUST NOW BEGIN THE STUDY OF ANOTHER 

TOPIC THAN THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT AND 

THE GROWTH OF TRANSPORTATION 

We have come to the end of the first part of the story of the 
Westward Movement of the American people. We have seen how 
since the first settlement of the English colonists in 1607 they have 
gradually moved all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific Coast. 
There is a great deal more to learn concerning the people who have 
helped to make the America of today; about the history of their 
wonderful industrial system; of their astonishing inventions; of how 
the steamboat, the cotton gin, the locomotive, the telegraph, telephone, 
airplane, and radio have come into use and changed their ways of 
living, of trading, and of travelling. Although we have seen how the 
country has been harnessed by canals and railroads, our study so far 
has emphasized the Appalachian region and the settling of the Ohio 
and Mississippi valleys. In the next pamphlet we are going to carry 
on the discussion and see how after the frontier disappeared and our 
vast territory was settled from coast to coast, the country filled in, 
population became denser, great cities and manufacturing centers 
grew up, in the West as well as in the East, and the railroads developed 
into an intricate network throughout the country. We are going to 
study the railroad "systems" and other huge industries. 

But there is another side to our growth that we must not neglect. 
We must learn how America is using her great natural and created 
wealth for better things, how she is giving more people an education 
than any other nation has ever done. We must think about how 
Americans spend their leisure time, what they enjoy, whether we 
like fine things, — music, pictures, good books, and how we compare 
with the people of other lands in this respect. As we go along we ask 
ourselves whether we are giving too much attention to manufacturing 
things and making money, and not enough time to enjoying the fine 
and beautiful things of life. 

YouB Need for a Summary of the Whole Pamphlet 
Now before going on to the next pamphlet, you should try to bring 
together into a short summary all the threads of the story. Read over 
The lessons again, select the chief questions and see if you can answer 
them. If you can you will know that you have really learned some 
important things about our country. 

Important Questions You Should be Able to Talk About 
1. Can you see in your mind's eye where the American people 
^^ere living at different periods from 1620 to 1920? Where they were 
in 1750? 1790? 1820? 1850? 1890? 1920? 



SUMMARY 207 

2. Can you see also about what territory they owned at different 
times since 1800? 

3. Can you tell briefly how and from whom we got the principal 
parts of our territory? 

4. Can you describe the chief differences between the way Indians 
lived in, say 1790, and the way white men live in 1922? 

5. Could you make some one who knew nothing about it, under- 
stand what life on the different frontiers was like? Could you prove 
the life was much the same on all the frontiers? 

6. How did the English traders save the English colonies? 

7. What do you think was the most important reason the English 
were able to defeat the French in America in 1763? What was the 
chief diff'erences between the English and the French in America? 

8. Do you know what a time line is? Can you letter one to show 
the different times when we improved transportation since Colonial 
days? (Pack-horses, Conestoga wagons, improved roads, flat-boats, 
steamboats, canals, railroads?) 

9. How does the "lay of the land" affect the routes followed by 
different kinds of transportation? 

10. Could you tell clearly what kinds of people settled the col- 
onies? What kinds came to America from 1820 to 1890? From 1890 
to date? 

11. How did the "old immigration" help to settle America? 

12. What were the essential differences between the "old" and 
the "new" immigration. 

13. Why did people on the Atlantic Coast go to such lengths to 
improve transportation, 1790 to 1850? 

14. What effect has railroad building had on canal traffic? 

15. Why has America used railroads so much and canals so little? 

16. How does the United States compare with other countries in 
its use of railroads? of canals? 

17. W^hat were the great forces that impelled the pioneers ever 
westward from the Atlantic? 

HOW IMPORTANT IS THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT IN THE 

HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE? WHAT 

PART DID TRANSPORTATION PLAY? 

To the Teacher: We suggest that you spend two 
or three days of class time in having the pupils 
prepare a summary of the work covered in this 
pamphlet. 

Following that, give the FINAL TEST on The 
Westward Movement and the Growth of Trans- 
portation. We will supply these in quantities free 
of eharcre. 



A SUGGESTED SCHEDULE OF LESSONS 

To the Teacher: The study of this pamphlet should not 
take more than 45 to 50 school exercises if the remaining 
topics are to be distributed equitably over the remainder of 
the year. The following' schedule is the one we shall try to 
follow. We suggest it to you. Feel free to adapt it as you 
like. You may wish to save time by omitting some sectio s. 
If more readings are needed for some pupils use the eighth 
and ninth grade pamphlets on this topic. 

You will notice the variety of work provided by the.se 
lessons : 1. The reading of little episodes of real human 
happenings; 2. The reading of long stories; 3. Making and 
studying varied types of maps and graphs; 4. Outside read- 
ings and individual pupil reports; 5. Frequent tests; 6. 
Constant note-taking; 7. Answering thought questions about 
each topic; 8. Weaving history, geography and civics into 
natural relationships. 

No. 
Lesson 

1. Read with the class and discuss the "Foreword to the Pupil." 
Turn through the major topics of the entire pamphlet. We sug- 
gest that you read with the pupils the list of questions at the 
very end of the pamphlet : Important Questions You Should he 
Able to Talk About. 

2. Discussion of Long Distance Connections. 

4, 5, 6. Three lessons are suggested for the discussion of Indian life 
and relations with the white man. Readings: III. The Bed 
Man's Continent and supplementary reading at option of the 
teacher, 
7, 8. Map work dealing with location of Indians, French, and Eng- 
lish ; reading and discussion of IV. The English Traders. 
9, 10, 11, 12, 13. Four or five lessons might be devoted to readings, 
individual reports and class discussions of V. How the White 
Man Came to the Red Man's Continent. 

14, 15. Two or three lessons are suggested for VI. A Map Study of 
the Westward Movement. 

16, 17, 18, Three or four lessons for VII. Territory Owned by the 
United States at Different Times. 

19, 20. Two lessons suggested for VIII. Life On the Different 
Frontiers, 1620-1890, 

21, 22, 23. The Westward Movement in the South — Land and Slaves. 
Three lessons suggested, 

24,25, Two lessons suggested for The Last Lap of the Westward 
Movement. 



SCHEDULE OF LESSONS 209 

26 to 32, inclusive. Probably six or seven lessons will be needed to 
discuss carefully XI. The People Who Settled the West. 



IMPORTANT NOTK TO THE TEACHER 

Through an error in arrangement, the section on A Fever of Road 
Building appears as No. XII. It should be numbered XIV and should 
folloAv the section on How American Transportation Developed. 
Please teach sections XII, XIII, and XIV in the follovi^ing order: 

XII. Map Exercise : Compare the Lands Owned with the 
Lands Settled. 

XIII, How American Transportation Developed. 

XIV. A Fever of Road Building. 

33. Map Exercise: Comparison of the Lands Owned with the Lands 
Settled, 1790 and 1850. 

34, 35. How American Transportation Developed with the Westward 

Movement of the People. Two lessons. 
3G, 37. The Flat Boat Era. Two lessons. 
37,38. Map Exercise: Rivers and Lakes You Should Kn^ow. Two 

lessons. 

39, The Story of the Steamboat. 

40, 41, 42, Three lessons suggested for An Epidemic of Canal Build- 

ing. Three lessons, 
43, 44. Two lessons on Railroads. Two lessons. 
45, 46. Summary and Review. Two lessons. 
47, Final Test. 



LIBRPRY OF CONGRESS 

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